My organization, Reading Queer (a Knight Arts grantee), launches the Reading Queer Writing Academy this weekend with “In Defense of Forgetting,” a two-day, two-hour intensive workshop open to anyone inquisitive about creative writing. The workshop will incorporate color photography taken by participants who will then use those prints as a prompt for writing poems. The workshop takes place Saturday and Sunday, May 10-11, at the Bakehouse Art Complex in Wynwood.

Connie Mae Oliver.

Led by poet and editor Connie Mae Oliver, “In Defense of Forgetting” aims to fulfill the goal of the Reading Queer Writing Academy, which is to “inspire and prepare members of the queer community to tap into this powerful potential inherent to the act and the art of writing.” Oliver, whose poetry has appeared in Cut Bank, The Brooklyn Rail and other literary journals, is an English Adjunct Lecturer at Brooklyn College, and served as a volunteer instructor for The Prison University Project at San Quentin.

According to Reading Queer Program Director José Portela, every workshop in the RQ Academy “is organized around a particular theme of relevance to the lives of the communities they serve. The focus of our public workshops will be to engage queer writers and artists of any level of experience in the development of their craft. Participants of these workshops will be exposed to a wide variety of writing tools and approaches designed specifically to enhance their creative output by overcoming internal blocks, while also exploring new possibilities for meaning and language.”

All RQ workshops are open to the general public regardless of an individual’s ability to pay. To preview the curriculum for 2014 and to register for a workshop, visit www.readingqueer.org.