Write with Pride

In this workshop, youth will create their own writing journal as part of our Write with Pride chapbook challenge — a 5 course series of writing workshops focused on spoken word poetry, flash fiction, songwriting, and dramatic writing: playwriting & screenwriting. Participants will create a journal, which will be used for planning, free writing, writing prompts and exercises, and book binding techniques. The young writers will focus on expressing their personal ideas of what PRIDE is with an emphasis on concepts of celebration. The writing can fit within the four forms of drama: comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy, and/or melodrama.

For our first session in the series, we are focusing on constructing spoken word poetry, as well as learning more about the black literary eras that have inspired spoken word poetry such as the Harlem Renaissance (20’s & 30’s) and The Black Arts Movement (60’s & 70’s).This workshop will be led by Write with Pride Co-coordinator Taria Person. Taria Person is a University of Tennessee Knoxville alum where they received a dual B. A. in English Creative Writing: Poetry and Interdisciplinary Studies: Africana Studies. Person is the author of Rainbow Elephant, and was commissioned to write a book of poetry by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation entitled, At the Summit. Person won an Artistic Professional Development grant from Alternate ROOTS in 2018 to produce their original LGBT stage play, Hangers, won an artistic grant in 2020 to produce their hip hop folk tale, Storm, has won multiple 1st place regional Spoken Word and Hip-Hop Slam Championship titles (2012 – 2017), performed at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival (2019), produced and performed Hangers at the Arkansas Theatre Festival (2020), and performed with Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and The 5th Woman Poetry for Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (2021).

This workshop will be held virtually and in person at Nashville Public Library’s Studio NPL.

REGISTER TO PARTICIPATE