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Via the link above you can access all events of the Soul Bone Literary Festival Fall '23 which are free and open to the public, offered via Zoom. Registration runs through Eventbrite.

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Writers imagine the unimaginable, know the unknowable, and say the unsayable. The Soul Bone℠ Literary Festival is offering a few workshops, master classes, and readings as part of MIU's MFA Showcase Residency.

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Bonus Prompt 2:

Write about a loss that also includes a gain, a pain that includes a beauty. Do some research for your poem and include it - something not immediately evident, a link that leaps. Is there something that heals or improves your loss? Who or what is on the other end of that? Spin out the story of someone you don't know who is connected to you invisibly through a loss you suffer or suffered. First read "Conduction" by Francesca Bell.

CONDUCTION
by Francesca Bell

The man drives as closely to my car

as he can without making contact.

His truck window is down.

He is taking my right of way,

and I’m driving home, already crying,

from the audiologist’s office.

I’ve turned on the music

and have just been thinking

that somewhere in Denmark,

an engineer lays her head

on a pillow filled, perhaps,

with eiderdown, her mind stuffed

with equations she mastered

in order to write the code

for the music setting on my

new hearing aids. They cost me

as much as a used car

and will not rejuvenate

my cilia, cannot rebuild

this foundation that gradually

crumbles, but they have

resurrected, for this moment,

the voice of the trumpet

and polished its bright tones.

I cannot conceive

of how the years she bent

to her math books resulted

in this flashing beauty,

but I lean on it

the way a person leans

on a crutch when her knee

has given out, the way

I lean on Telemann who wrote

this concerto almost 300 years ago,

each note big enough

to compensate—across time—for loss,

for the man passing slowly by,

menace blaring from his eyes,

as, triumphant, he raises

his middle finger like a baton.

—from Rattle #78, Winter 2022
Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist

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Above and here you can find our upcoming offerings in Eventbrite! We have partial and full scholarships for every session for those who register early. If you really want to attend and can't afford the fee, contact us at soulboneliterary@gmail.com.

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Soul Bone℠ Literary Center Offerings, Summer 2023

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Soul Bone℠ intersects writing with creative process, spirituality, social justice, and healing in tiny, winged courses that lift the spirit. Connect with us at soulboneliterary@gmail.com.

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You can hear Nynke's poem "The Calligraphy of Love" read aloud during tonight's session.

Prompt:

Describe a heart-breaking moment of tenderness in face of loss and impossibility.

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Listen to Jennifer's poem "My First Love" in the session or re-read it here.

Prompt:

Write a piece about your own first love—was this a person, a place, an idea, or something else?

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My first love was silence.
I built myself from scratch
and no one listened.
This was the best time of my life.
I used to carry the clothes
to the laundry room
and pray for all the fog
in the world to surround me.
I'd let my thoughts
catch rides
with passing airplanes.
All that womanhood
caught in the roof
of my mouth
was like honey.
I knew it would never
go bad
so I never said a word
about it.

Credits

Originally published by The Accomplices.

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Joshua Jennifer Espinoza - "My First Love"

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Listen to Jennifer's poem "Birthday Suits" in the session. You can also re-read the poem here or by clicking the link above.

Prompt:

Write a piece about a memorable moment involving an article of clothing or some other significant personal item.

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a man out of me.

On his command, I drove us

you could get three sets of suits

for a hundred bucks.

What a steal! he exclaimed

Regardless, I followed him

around my tired shoulders,

to salt the wound of my body

with his idea of truth.

beneath the cover of the flesh:

five million faggy mountains

slicing through fields full

of dreamed-up tongues and

the heavy polyester curtain,

as dad held the suit guy hostage

of the night he encountered

real-life Biblical demons,

how at first he felt their presence

tightening inside his chest,

and then witnessed them crawling

and how he prayed and cursed them

And he never said this, but I

knew he was convinced they

and stretched out my hair

and adorned me with flowers

and forced my inside places to whisper

what the suits were for So

I tossed them in the back

and the day I sold that car off

those suits were still in there

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Birthday Suits by J. Jennifer Espinoza | Poetry Magazine

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a man out of me. On his command, I drove us you could get three sets of suits for a hundred bucks. What a steal! he exclaimed Regardless, I followed him around my tired shoulders, to salt the wound of my body with his idea of truth.

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Read "The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings" by Donika Kelly.

Bonus Prompt 1:

Write a piece about a special or memorable encounter with nature.

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This is a prompt in relation to Nynke's poem "Time Travel to the Past is Theoretically Possible" read out loud in the session.

Prompt:

Write about an illicit love you’ve had in your life. Describe a first or last meeting like a scene in a movie.

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Being aware of being aware - Sonja Rosing

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Joshua Jennifer Espinoza is a trans woman poet. Her work has been featured in Poetry, Denver Quarterly, American Poetry Review, Poem-a-Day, Lambda Literary, PEN America, The Offing, and elsewhere. Her full-length collection THERE SHOULD BE FLOWERS was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016. She also is the author of  I’m Alive / It Hurts / I Love It (Big Lucks 2019). She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside, and is a full-time faculty in MIU's MFA in Creative Writing.

Nynke Salverda Passi is the director of MIU's MFA program and co-chair of the English dept. She is also the founder and director of the Soul Bone℠ Literary Center and Festival. She was born and raised in the Netherlands. Her work has been published in CALYX, Gulf Coast, Poetry Breakfast, Life & Legends, and more. Her poetry has been anthologized in Pandemic Puzzle Pieces and River of Earth & Sky (Blue Light Press), Carrying the Branch (Glass Lyre Press), and Oxygen: Parables of the Pandemic (River Paw Press). Together with Rustin Larson and Christine Schrum, she edited the poetry collection Leaves by Night, Flowers by Day.

Testimonials

"Every single event [of the Soul Bone Literary Festival] influenced my thinking about my own work. Right out of the gate with Nynke and Jennifer. Holy mother of all things beautiful! I was never so excited and proud to have these two women as my mentors and teachers. I remember after I heard each of them read their poems, I thought 'I hit the jack pot of professionalism!' Immediately, they opened the door of vulnerability for all the students and participants. After that, I felt there was no holding back the flood gates that wished to pour from me."

- Jennifer Sheena

"You two made a fabulous team! Your master workshops on Writing the Wound and Writing toward Healing inspired me to create my own poem concerning a traumatic incident. I had trouble writing about it, but this time, with your positivity and support, I came up with something. I think what really did the trick was y’all saying that all of us have different traumas and it’s ok to feel how we feel. I am so grateful for your supportive space and your grace. You both have an incredible creative energy that is phenomenal to be around (even on Zoom)."

- Jennifer Grant

"Two talented writers who have that rare ability to inspire others to write often and well.."

- Jim Turner

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Jennifer Espinoza and Nynke Passi will hold safe space while offering deep, soulful writing prompts that will get you to open up creatively. As poet Molly Fisk says, "Please go wild and make a mess. You will learn so much that is valuable." You have to start with the messy, shitty first drafts, the attempts that don't lead anywhere. This is your place to mine yourself deeply and share if you feel comfortable only. Jennifer and Nynke will share creative prompts and provide a handout so you can look back on the prompts after the sessions as well. They will be your guides to safely explore the ordinary, beautiful, and also the difficult places in a manner that empowers, relieves, transforms, and redeems.

About Soul Bone™ Literary Center

Soul Bone™ intersects writing with creative process, spirituality, social justice, and healing in tiny, winged courses that lift the spirit.

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Here is the Soul Bone℠ website.

Here you can find the Soul Bone℠ Literary Center's full summer schedule of upcoming workshops, generative circles, and events.

You can contact us via email: soulboneliterary@gmail.com

Here we will notify you of the upcoming MIU MFA Residency, a literary festival with free events offered via Zoom and open to the public. Our Fall '23 residency will run from Aug. 21 - Sept. 4 and will be an MFA Showcase residency with master classes, panels, and readings by alumni and English dept. faculty, plus a few special guests. Nynke founded and directs both the MIU MFA in Creative Writing and the Soul Bone℠ Literary Center and Festival, so there is overlap between events. In our Soul Bone℠ spaces, you'll often find some of our MFA students and alumni, who are always welcome to join! You will love hearing their amazing work. Soul Bone℠ exists as a creative, diverse community for poets and writers of all skill levels and in all phases of their careers. Our aim is safe space, connection, healing, and transformation.