Weekly at 7:30 PM

A community writing workshop in which participants are asked to bring 2-3 pages of fiction to read and receive feedback. Facilitated by Raquel Baker via Zoom. Registration required.

Raquel Baker earned a PhD in English Literary Studies from the University of Iowa, specializing in Postcolonial Studies and 20th- and 21st-century African literatures in English, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Raquel is currently an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial and Transnational Literatures at California State University Channel Islands, teaching courses on creative writing and contemporary African literatures. Raquel has published poetry in Africology and The Arrow; fiction in Enculturation, The Daily Palette, The Womanist, and Crux; and non-fiction in Little Village; and has done readings with the Ventura County Poetry project. Raquel lives for talking all things about the craft and social meanings of literature! 

Weekly at 8:00 PM

The West Coast’s longest-running free poetry workshop welcomes new and seasoned poets to share new work and provide feedback. Please be prepared to share one poem.

This workshop will be hosted via Zoom. Please sign up for each workshop session at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting, and you will be contacted with instructions on how to join the meeting. Each week's new sign up page will be shared via our mailing list and linked below. Sign up on Eventbrite.

Facilitators are rotated quarterly. Current Facilitator: Tom Laichas

Tom Laichas is author of four books of poetry, including Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (FutureCycle Press, 2023) and the forthcoming Landscapes From An American Afterlife (The Los Angeles Press, 2025). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Plume, BarBar, The Los Angeles Times, the Irish Times, The High Window Review (UK), and elsewhere. He is the winner of poetry prizes from Jabberwock Review, Puerto del Sol, and Prime 53, and has been shortlisted in competitions sponsored by The Moth (Ireland), Aesthetica, Arts & Letters, New Letters and Gunpowder Press. He lives with his family in Venice, California.