Events

January Webinars with Antioch University

Tarot as Inner Teacher: Meet the Major Arcana (Fool, Magician, High Priestess, Empress)

What do the Fool, Magician, High Priestess and Empress tarot cards have in common? They signify ways to approach beginnings, each with their own particular invitation: The Fool invites us to embark without fear, the Magician invites us to enchant by making the ordinary extraordinary, the High Priestess beckons us to listen to internal guidance, and the Empress invites us to harness the body’s wisdom as we consider roles at home and in the community. In this five part webinar series, you’ll have the opportunity to explore both the universal and personal ways of approaching beginnings through the lens of tarot’s archetypes

Five-Part Webinar Series / $99
Jan. 9, 16, 23, 30 & Feb. 6, 2021
1:00 pm (Pacific Time) / 4:00 pm (Eastern Time)

October Webinars with Antioch University (Inspiration to Publication Program)

During times of transition and uncertainty, we can lose our connection to our inner compass and find ourselves feeling overwhelmed. We will explore just one aspect of our lives at a time in relation to the transitions we are facing, using the lens of the four tarot aces:

No prior knowledge of the tarot is necessary. We meet four consecutive Saturdays. Cost for this 4-Part Webinar Series / $99

Saturday October 17: 10 am PST / 1:00 pm ET
Saturday October 24: 10 am PST / 1:00 pm ET
Saturday October 31: 10 am PST / 1:00 pm ET (Halloween)
Saturday November 7th: 10 am PST / 1:00 pm ET

For full details and to sign up visit: Tarot for Transition

From Fear to Love: Tarot’s Tower and the Lovers. How do static images on a card support inner personal growth and outward change? Join this webinar for a close look at the way Major Arcana (Big Secret) soul cards like the Tower and the Lovers can help us move from fear to love. To explore the archetypal energy behind both cards, we will look at a number of versions of both the Tower and the Lovers card. You’ll be introduced to some accessible but potent tarot journaling methods. No prior knowledge of the tarot necessary. Webinar:

Saturday October 3: 10 am PST / 1 pm Eastern Time. Cost: $25

For full details and to sign up visit: From Fear to Love

FALL FOR WRITING: San Diego Writers, Ink

Sign-ups are now available for Fall for Writing, a four-day writing conference that benefits San Diego Writers, Ink. Dates for the conference: October 15, 16, 17, and 18, 2020. View the full schedule of classes and buy tickets here on the landing page: ($150 members, $175 non-members, $25 off through October 8 early registration):

Fall for Writing Virtual Conference

You can also sign up for individual classes ($15 members, $20 non-members); I will be teaching the following course on Friday, October 16 from 12-1:45 pm PST:

Using Tarot to Write Love Poems

Both tarot cards and poetry engage with imagery to explore our awareness of who we are and why we are here. Truth be told, nine times out ten, people come to oracles like tarot to ask about love. The tarot is an ancient system made up of 78 cards most often used for formulating questions and divining answers about all aspects of life. Like poetry, it draws on images from nature, myths, and life scenarios to explore and depict challenges and opportunities. In this two hour workshop offered over Zoom, we will use different versions of the Lovers card to inspire new poetry (bring pencil and paper). The instructor will provide sample tarot card imagery.

Link to sign up for this individual Fall for Writing Session:

Using Tarot to Write Love Poems.

Images of Hope: Celebrating National Poetry Month (*free online poetry workshop)

As our routines both personally and globally shift daily in response to the coronavirus pandemic, we find ourselves with an unprecedented lack of control over the ways we can engage with our environment and with one another. But as writers, we have a beautiful limitless tool at our disposal: we can take up our pens, travel freely using the mind’s eye, and write our way towards hope and connection. In this workshop we’ll look at some example poems to explore how contemporary poets witness, respond, and inspire in times of crisis. Additionally, you’ll have time to write to a prompt designed to help you discover your own personal images of hope and consider example structures for poem creation.

This two hour workshop is offered through Coronado Public Library and will be conducted over Zoom. To register, please email: rsvp@coronado.ca.us if you would like to participate. Registered participants will receive a link to connect using Zoom. If you are not familiar with Zoom, the Library can help walk you through the process in advance of the class so that you can participate.

Free Live Webinar: Use Tarot to Establish Your Journaling Practice: The Power of the One-Card Draw

*We are offering this webinar again on Saturday April 25, 2020

This webinar held on Saturday, March 21st, 10 am (PST) / 1 pm (EST) was a beautiful success. So we are offering it again for free at the end of April.

Using tarot cards as an inspiration for daily journaling deepens your relationship to yourself and your writing. The steady practice of journaling already gives you the powerful gift of introspection and leaves you a concrete, physical map of your mind and your heart. When you add the tarot as a writing tool to begin or extend your journaling practice, you enter an inspirational landscape of symbols and images designed to help you explore how we travel through life from innocent beginner (The Fool) to mature world player (The World Card).

During this interactive zoom class, you’ll be offered:

· An overview of the tarot’s structure (Majors, Minors, People Cards and the 4 Elements)

· Suggestions for how to choose a tarot deck

· Steps for engaging with the cards

· Tarot journal entry examples

Zoom Session comes with the following PDFs:

· Tarot journaling exercises

· Reading bibliography

FREE. Sign up here for Use the Tarot to Establish Your Journaling Practice

2020 Writers Festival, Oxnard High School

March 6, 8:45am-2:15pm, $40 at the door for a chance to work with the following dynamic crew:

Brendan Constantine, TJ Ferranola, Sandra Hunter, David Rocklin, Christiana Morgenroth, and yours truly.

Individual script consults

Reading and Open mic

Literary card readings by Tania Pryputniewicz (bring a question of the heart regarding your writing and we will take a look using the tarot to inspire your next move)

Love is All You Need: Poems and Music of Love and Gratitude

Reading and Open Mic

Coffee Catz

Sunday morning, February 23, 2020

Father-daughter duo Stephen and Tania Pryputniewicz and friends

Reading starts at 10 a.m. followed by open mic from 10:20-11:00

11-1 music and mingling, stay and converse…

Stephen Pryputniewicz spent 42 years tuning and caring for pianos. Now he plays pianos, providing doorways through which Music can emerge into this world. Like Jimi Hendrix, who had a mutual friend described as a “sweet and gentle soul,” Steve transforms, by a kind of Alchemy, most of his “negative” emotions into Music, Art, and Poetry. He loves to collaborate with his amazing January Butterfly, Tania. Tania Pryputniewicz is grateful for a lifetime of being her father’s daughter and for her Sonoma County roots; she holds an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and teaches poetry and tarot writing classes for San Diego Writers, Ink and Antioch University’s online program from Inspiration to Publication.

Not Your Usual Father’s Day Poetry Workshop: Letters, Rhyme, and the Senses (Poetry Workshop)

Magee Park Poets, Poetry Workshop, Sunday, June 9th, 2019 from 1:30-4:30, free, no need to RSVP, Georgina Cole Library, Community Room, 1250 Carlsbad Village Drive

Not Your Usual Father’s Day Poetry Workshop: Letters, Rhyme, and the Senses. This poetry workshop is free (and graciouly sponsored by Friends of Carlsbad Library).

Come with paper and pencil and we will explore the epistle form, drafting our own conversational letter poems as well as working with rhyme and the senses. Poets on our worksheet include Megan Arlett, Eavan Boland, Thom Gunn, Gary Snyder, Evie Shockley, and others. All level of writer welcome.

Here is the link to the calendar page at the library.

The Bold Poet: Finding Your Muse (Poetry Workshop)

San Diego Writer’s Festival, San Diego Central Public Library, April 13, 2019, free, from 10-11 am, Room 563, 5th floor

Where do you find inspiration? Under a full moon or beneath a blazing sun in the desert? Out quietly paddling by canoe down the middle of the misty river? As writers, we draw on the wonders of the natural world around us, we use our five senses, and we let our imaginations run wild. In this workshop, we will explore the sources of wonder that surround us in nature, that we experience through the body’s fives senses, and that we follow by traveling the imaginary landscapes of the mind’s eye. Where have you been, what have you seen, and where will you take us? Join this poetry workshop to write your own five senses adventure poem. All level of writer welcome.

*This all day festival is free and open to the public; for a full list of events and author interviews, visit The San Diego Writer’s Festival website.

Calling Your Writer’s Block Bluff: Three Card Draws (Mini Tarot Readings)

AWP, Portland 2019

Oregon Convention Center

Drop by the Saddle Road Press Booth to sign up for a free mini tarot reading in celebration of the Heart’s Compass Tarot and Writing Workbook, forthcoming soon from Saddle Road Press.

I will be giving ten minute readings on Thursday March 28, 2019 from 9-4 and Friday March 29 from 2-5. These three cards draws will be based on your writing project at hand or any other question of the heart.

You can also pick up a sample chapter from the tarot workbook that gives you an exercise for using tarot principles to write a cento (poem compromised of lines by other poets).

I’m elated that this workbook, based on the tarot writing classes I’ve taught since 2012, will provide you with a tarot pilgrimage for daily life! The Heart’s Compass Tarot and Writing Workbook:

1) Introduces you gently to the tarot structure by walking you through the four elements that provide the foundation for the structure of the minor mentors.

2) Walks you through a series of writing and art exercises designed to help you mine your lived experience of the elements in your life and steer you towards what you’d like to invite into your life using the compass of your heart.

3) Guides you to create six of your own tarot cards that feature your own symbols. You’ll create your version of the Fool, the four Aces (gifts of each suit: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water) and your own version of the Magician.

It is my hope that the workbook will seed your desire to keep creating your own tarot cards (admittedly an ambitious undertaking with 78 cards total to create). This workbook gives you the means to develop a relationship with the four suits and lays the groundwork for extended study.

Here’s a list of Saddle Road Press authors and the books you will find at our table:

Dane Cervine, The Gateless Gate and Polishing the Moon Sword
Erika Howsare, How Is Travel A Folded Form?
Stefan Kiesbye, The Staked Plains
Ire’ne Lara Silva, Blood Sugar Canto
Ire’ne Lara Silva, Cuicacalli: House of Song
Don Mitchell, A Red Woman Was Crying (2019 edition)
Tania Pryputniewicz, November Butterfly
Jessamyn Smyth, The Inugami Mochi
Ruth Thompson, Whale Fall & Black Sage
Rolf Yngve, Dog Watches

And from 11-12 on Thursday we will be sharing our Saddle Road Press table with Marcia Meier, Weeping Willow Books publisher and editor of Unmasked: Women Write About Sex and Intimacy After 50. Join us also on Thursday evening from 5-7 p.m. for an off-site reading from Unmasked featuring eight poets and essayists who contributed to the anthology. They include Debbie Brosten, Roberta Feins, Ellaraine Lockie, Tanya Ko-Hong, Bernadette Murphy, Lisa Rizzo , yours truly, and Cathie Sandstrom. The event will be at the offices of Nurture Realty, 1100 SE Division Street, Suite 120, Portland, 97202.

America We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience (Poetry Reading)

Friday, February 8, 2019 at 8 p.m.

Beyond Baroque

681 N. Venice Blvd.

Venice, CA 90291

Admission: Free for members; otherwise by donation $5-$10

Facebook link for Beyond Baroque Event Page

Contributors reading Friday February 8th include Eliot Schain, Martin Ott, Tania Pryputniewicz, Murray Silverstein, and David St. John in celebration of the anthology, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2018). The anthology, born in response to the 2016 Presidential election, combines voices of poets from across America–from red states and blue states, high schools and nursing homes, big cities and small towns–with the voices of poets from other countries and other times. From Virgil and Dante to Claudia Rankine and Mai Der Vang, from Milton to Merwin, from Po-Chiu to Robin Coste Lewis, these voices, now raucous, not muted, now lyric, now plain–join together in dissent and in praise, in grief and alarm, in vision and hope.

Here’s a partial list of other contributors included in the anthology: Elizabeth Alexander, Ellen Bass, Lucille Clifton, Natalie Diaz, Molly Fisk, Terrance Hayes, Robinson Jeffers, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ursula K. Le Guin, Audre Lorde, Czeslaw Milosz, Pablo Neruda, Sharon Olds, Irma Pineda, Adrienne Rich, Evie Shockley, Wislawa Szymborska, Susan Terris, Ocean Vuong, William Carlos Williams, Joseph Zaccardi and more. If you are not able to come to the reading but wish to order the anthology, visit Sixteen Rivers Press.

Here is a Feb 2019 Review of America We Call Your Name by Valerie Wieland (New Pages).

Unheard Voices: Resistance, Resilience and Rebuilding (Writing Workshop)

Crisis! Today’s troubling headlines, articles, and Tweets can be overwhelming! What to do? Come on out for a reading Friday night, and a writing workshop the following morning. Join Meliza Bañales (Missy Fuego), Sandra Hunter, and Tania Pryputniewicz at San Diego Writers, Ink. Sandra Hunter celebrates her short story collection, Trip Wires (Leapfrog Press, 2018), a collection that personalizes global-scale catastrophe by taking brief looks into the everyday lives of young people around the world from Columbia to Afghanistan to Glasgow

and beyond. A teacher and avid supporter of women’s causes, Meliza Bañales celebrates her new non-fiction book, Adventure Awaits You in Hell: A Survivor’s Manifesto (Ladybox Books). Tania Pryputniewicz celebrates the anthology, America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2018). Audience participation encouraged for lively discussion on Friday night.

Sandra Hunter on the San Diego Writers, Ink blog: Sandra Hunter on Trip Wires, Trippings, and Assumptions

Link to more information: Unheard Voices Reading

Friday October 26, 2018, free and open to the public

6-8 pm

Liberty Station

2730 Historic Decatur Road, Barracks 16, Second Floor

Above the Women’s Musuem, San Diego, 92106

Link to more information: Unheard Voices Writing Workshop: Resistance, Resilience, and Rebuilding

*Fee: $30 member, $36 nonmember. Course feel includes a copy of Sandra Hunter’s story collection, Trip Wires.

Saturday October 27, 10 am until noon

Liberty Station

2730 Historic Decatur Road, Barracks 16, Second Floor

Above the Women’s Museum, San Diego, 92106

Songs of Survival: An Evening of Poetry, Music, Performance

Awakenings Art Gallery: Chicago. I’ll be reading the poems, “Peer Counselor” from November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, 2014) and “Opossum,” both set to music my father Stephen Pryputniewicz is recording for me to play behind the poems. I am grateful to be part of a group of performers coming to the stage for this Songs of Survival event meant to celebrate the one year anniversary of the MeToo movement. What a blessing to be invited by Awakenings, to be part of supporting the process of healing which always includes making a space for multiple truths to be told, witnessed, and released towards healing and a return to wholeness and joy over time, with bravery. My thanks and gratitude to the many beautiful soulmates, guides, and helpers (personal and professional) who keep me facing the sun.

Thursday, October 18, 2018 at 7 p.m.

4001 North Ravenswood Ave, #204C

Chicago, Illinois

Tickets available online:

www.awakeningsart.org

Unmasked comes to Taos and Santa Fe

Taos: Society of the Muse of Southwest on September 29, 2018

“Sex for women after 50 is invisible for the same reason that contraception, abortion, and sex between two women or two men has been forbidden: sexuality is supposed to be only about procreation. This lie was invented by patriarchy, monotheism, racism and other hierarchies. Sexuality is and always has been also about bonding, communicating, and pleasure. Unmasked helps to restore a human right.” —Gloria Steinem

Unmasked co-editors Marcia Meier and Kathleen Barry with contributors Renata Golden, Barbara Rockman, Lisa Rizzo, and Tania Pryputniewicz will read from and discuss the book at:

Society of the Muse of the Southwest (SOMOS)

Taos, NM

Saturday September 29th, 2018 at 2 p.m.

The book is divided into four sections: Herbs (enticement), for sexual playfulness, flirting; Pomegranate (tasting), for dating and trying out different things; Bread (sustenance), for satisfying and/or long-term relationships; and Figs (sweetness), for the sweetness that can come from a delicious and loving bond that is both sexual and intimate. Please join us for the reading and book signing; event is free and open to the public.

Santa Fe: Op.Cit on September 30th, 2018

Join six contributors to the anthology, Unmasked, Women Write About Sex and Intimacy After Fifty, for a discussion about women, aging, and sexuality at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 30, at the Op.Cit bookstore in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Renata Golden and Barbara Rockman, both of Santa Fe, Tania Pryputniewicz, and Lisa Rizzo, as well as co-editors Kathleen Barry, Ph.D. and Marcia Meier, will read selections from the book, followed by a wide-ranging discussion. This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

Unmasked is intended to surprise, inform and encourage all women of a certain age to (re)discover their sexuality. “In a society that reveres youth – and particularly young, sexy women – little attention is paid to sex and intimacy among women in later life,” Meier says. “Unmasked gives women from around the world an opportunity to share their stories.”

Kirkus Reviews praises Unmasked as “a diverse array of perspectives here, each unique enough to keep readers intrigued. A refreshingly blunt chorus of older women’s voices.”

This collection of 32 poems and 21 essays features works by women who are published writers and also mothers, grandmothers, playwrights, professors, teachers, psychotherapists, copywriters, city council women, and a model for a foot fetish website. They come from places as diverse as Australia, California, Delaware, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Washington, Wisconsin, the UK, among others. Many have prestigious fellowships and Pushcart Prize nominations and other awards to their names. They range in age from 50 to 87, and reflect the full spectrum of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

Join us for an intimate afternoon of blush-worthy readings by contributors to this new anthology:

Sunday September 30, 2018, @ 2 p.m.

Op.Cit books

157 Paseo De Peralta, Santa Fe, NM

FREE and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

www.weepingwillowbooks.com/unmasked

Zoetic Press and Drunk Monkey’s Reading Extravaganza, Bookshow LA

Saturday, August 4th, 2018 from 6-8 pm

Bookshow, Highland Park

5503 N Figueroa St.

LA, CA 90042

A night of reading, rumination, snacks and wine. Representing Zoetic Press: Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, Laura Reece Hogan, Tania Pryputniewicz, and Wendy Zimmer. Representing Drunk Monkeys: Kevin Ridgeway, Joe Iraggi, Mathieu Cailler, and Ashley Perez.

Full bios of readers and more information here: Zoetic Press & Drunk Monkey Reading

Odense Lyrik Tech and Tekst 2018

I am extremely honored to be presenting three poetry movies in Denmark on March 18, 2018. All three movies are based on the poems in November Butterfly:

Corridor

Mordred’s Dream

She Dressed in a Hurry

Very special thanks goes to poet Cindy Lynn Brown for the invitation and for translating the poems into Danish for me. I was an AFS student years ago between graduating from high school and beginning college. I was very blessed to live in Silkeborg for a year with beautiful and welcoming Danes I still love to this day. Fingers crossed my Danish will return and carry me through the presentation!

The week’s festivities draw on the presence and writing of an international group of writers including Jarrett Kobek (USA/Turkey), Marie Silkeberg (Sweden), Jessie Kleeman (Greenland), Eino Santanen (Finland), Pauline Jupin (France), and Eileen Myles via Skype (USA).

Add to that a solid showing of Danish writers/presenters/and works including those written by: Bjørn Themsen, Birgitte Zacho, Mette Ø Henriksen, Tomas Thøfner, Shekufe Tadayoni Heiberg, Sophia Handler, Anders Vægter Nielsen, Lone Aburas, Caspar Eric, Hanne Højgaard Viemose, Pia Busk, Mette Moestrup, Gerd Laugesen, Nanna Storr-Hansen, Pia Tafdrup, Andreas Pederse, Viggo Madsen.

For more information and a full schedule of the week’s events see: Facebook page for Odense Lyric 2018

Odense Lyrik website

Anthology Reading for Unmasked: Women Write About Sex and Intimacy After Fifty

Join us to celebrate the publication of Unmasked: Women Write About Sex and Intimacy After Fifty, edited by Marcia Meier and Kathleen A. Barry, PhD. Introductory remarks by editor Marica Meier will be followed by a reading with contributors Renata Golden, Tania Pryputniewicz, Lisa Rizzo and Barbara Rockman.

Saturday, October 7th from 5-7 pm,

Liberty Station, San Diego Writers, Ink,

2730 Historic Decatur Rd No. 202.

A Turn for the Verse

An Evening of Poetry on Friday, September 8th from 7-9 p.m. I’m honored to be reading with Peter Krumbach and Ron Salisbury at the Meraki Cafe, 1735 Adams Avenue in University Heights, San Diego.

A very special thank you to host Allen Clark and the poets I am honored to write with in Ron Salisbury and Anna Di Martino’s San Diego Writers, Ink (Not) Dead (Yet) Poet’s Society class.

Prior Events:

A Year in Ink, Volume Ten: Launch Party

Along with 39 other authors, I will be reading work coming out in the San Diego Writers, Ink Anthology (this time a poem about skateboarding, “Dropping in the Eight”).

Come on out and pick up your own copy of the anthology and support our local writing community in San Diego. Join Editor Judy Reeves and Team Ink for a celebration including food, drink, and readings from the anthology.

$5 suggested donation at the door or an unopened bottle of wine.

Old Town (Cygnet) Theater

Tuesday June 13, 2017: 7-9 pm

Pisces Block Print Hall and Pryputniewicz

Block print by Patricia Hall & Pryputniewicz

Poetry Postcards at Beyond Baroque, Venice California: Sunday April 30th, 1-4 p.m.

I’m honored that five of my centos, “A Thank You Letter to Barack Obama,” “An Open Letter to Donald Trump, “ “An Iris for Hillary,” “Emerald Dream, For Michelle Obama,” and “Ghost Ribs, For Melania Trump” have been chosen by Nicelle Davis for an event in Venice, “Poetry Postcards at Beyond Baroque: write your political concerns to representatives.” The event is hosted by Nicelle Davis, Armine Iknadossian, and Quentin Ring. They print up the poems, provide a space for folks to gather, address postcards, pen messages to representatives, and leave us some time at the end to read poems aloud. Here’s the Facebook link to “Poetry postcards at Beyond Baroque.”

In case you can’t make it to be with us this weekend, I’ve recorded three of the centos:

Cento Thank you Letter to Obama as an MP3.

Cento Open Letter to Trump as an MP3.

Cento An Iris for Hillary as an MP3.

Here’s a link to a blogpost about the process of writing centos: Poetry Meets Tarot Synchronicity: Crafting Centos and Leaning on Your Beloveds.

Ten Thousand Waves

I’ll be participating as a one of many readers in the Ten Thousand Waves reading at the Museum of Women in Liberty Station, organized by Katya Williamson; I hope you’ll join us either to read or to listen! Here’s the description from the flier.

Ten Thousand Waves: Come join us for an afternoon of original prose and poetry. We hope to inspire, raise awareness, comfort, entertain, and enjoy each other’s company.

4:30-6:30 on May 13^th

Women’s Museum, Liberty Station

2730 Historic Decatur Road, Barracks 16

92106, SD

Admission: $5

Cover Design by Don Mitchell

Everyday Pilgrimages: Metaphors, Questions, and Omens

A Joint Poetry Workshop co-taught by Lisa Rizzo and Tania Pryputniewicz

Saturday March 4th, 2017

10-12 am at San Diego Writers, Ink

$30 fee (members of SDWI) or $36 non-member includes copy of Lisa Rizzo’s “Always a Blue House”

In Always a Blue House (Saddle Road Press, December 2016), Lisa Rizzo’s poems range between the earthbound house of human perception and the limitless plane of soul questions elicited by opening one’s heart to the blue angel of poetry. Whether she is listening in the depths of the Oregon Caves for “what had not yet been unearthed” or asking of her readers, “will you follow me?” Rizzo’s questions linger: “What gifts do I give?” “Does faith remain when memory is lost?” In November Butterfly, Tania Pryputniewicz introduces the reader to the lives of iconic women. Through personae poems, she explores metaphors and offers similar invitations: “Let us begin with the worm / its translucent omen…”

Join both poets for a two-hour workshop exploring the ways we can use metaphors, questions, and omens to write the poetry of our lives. Bring pencil and paper and write with us. Class time will allow for a close look at a few poems from each writer’s collection as a starting point for creating your own work, writing time, and sharing time. Course fee includes a copy of Rizzo’s Always a Blue House.

Lisa Rizzo is the author of Always a Blue House (Saddle Road Press, 2016) and the chapbook, In the Poem an Ocean (Big Table Publishing, 2011). Her work has also appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies such as Calyx Journal, Naugatuck River Review, and DoveTales “Nature” An International Journal of the Arts. Two of her poems received 1st and 2nd prizes in the 2011 Maggi H. Meyer Poetry Prize competition. Having spent 23 years teaching middle school language arts, she is now an instructional coach, working with teachers. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and can be reached online at www.lisarizzopoetry.com.

Photo by Jamie Clifford

Tania Pryputniewicz is a co-founding blogger for Tarot for Two and Mother Writer Mentor. Saddle Road Press published her debut poetry collection, November Butterfly, in 2014. Poems are forthcoming in A Year In Ink, The Chiron Review, Everyday Haiku Anthology, Nimrod International Journal, and Whale Road Review. She teaches a monthly poetry workshop for San Diego Writers, Ink and lives in Coronado, California with her husband, three children, blue-eyed Husky, and a portly housecat named Luna. She can be found online at www.taniapryputniewicz.com.

Four-Eyed Frog Flamingo Meet and Greet

Come out to meet the Flamingos… Saturday June 18, 4 p.m. at Four-Eyed Frog Books, 39138 Ocean Drive, Gualala. We are a group of nine women writers, all published and recipients of literary awards.

We come every year to Sea Ranch to share writing, good food, great wine, laughter, and a deep love of Gualala’s stunning coastal beauty.

This Meet and Greet conversation gives us a chance to discuss how we met, to consider what makes a writers group a success, and brainstorm with you how we might serve the local writing community with future workshops and events.

We hope to see you there!

Photo by Lisa Rizzo

November Butterfly:

I am booking “Writing Past Fear: Free Your Butterfly” Workshops and Readings for my first poetry collection, November Butterfly, Saddle Road Press, 2014 (most recent: Review of November Butterfly at Tweetspeak Poetry by Glynn Young, Review of November Butterfly at Damfino Press by Lauren Gordon and Review of November Butterfly at TCJWW by Jen Teeter-Moore (The California Journal of Women Writers) and Review of November Butterfly at The Mom Egg, by Anne Marie Fowler). Because I am organizing and funding the book tour solo, I would love ideas about venues; if you feel your city would support a workshop like the one described below, please contact me. I am also, as a lifelong teacher, interested in visiting college English classrooms to consider women artists and writers in their roles as mentors (as supported by the book’s focus on iconic women and their relationship to thriving).

Cities for which I am actively working on booking events include Albuquerque, Los Angeles, Seattle, Sacramento, the Bay Area, Chicago, and Iowa City.

FILM SCREENING OF POETRY MOVIES: Guerneville Public Library: 14107 Armstrong Woods Rd, Guerneville, CA 95446. Wednesday, October 14. 6:30-7:30 p.m. Five poetry movies: “She Dressed in a Hurry, Lady Di,” “Amelia,” “Mordred’s Dream,” “Thumbelina,” “The Corridor, Guinevere.” Photographer Robyn Beattie will read the poems from November Butterfly, show the corresponding movies, and field questions about her images and her creative process.

Attended AROHO’s 2015 Retreat as the Marg Chandler Fellow and taught mentor writing workshop based on poems in November Butterfly in August of 2015. Offered poetry consults in conjunction with Tarot Reading (Tarot as Poet’s Mirror).

READING and BOOK SIGNING: Sunday, August 9th, 2:00 p.m Garcia Books, 376 Garcia Street, Santa Fe with poets Barbara Rockman and Robyn Hunt.

BOOK SIGNING: March 14th, Coronado Public Library, Winn Room, from 4-6 p.m. I will have copies of November Butterfly for sale and would love to sign a copy for you. Come out and check out all of us local authors; the Winn Room will be buzzing with many of us eager to meet and speak with you.

POETRY MOVIES, READING, ARTSHOW: March 29th, 2015 event in Northern California (hosted by The Occidental Center for the Arts) showcasing a handful of the poetry movies featuring the poems in November Butterfly. Original works of art on display at the event which will included showing the movies, a reading and Q and A.

A NIGHT AT THE LIBRARY: A CELEBRATION OF LOCAL AUTHORS

Presented by Friends of the Coronado Library

Friday, February 6, 2015 6:00pm to 9:00pm

640 Orange Ave

$50.00/person includes food, wine, beer and $10 voucher for Second Hand Prose bookstore

To purchase tickets send your check with name, phone number and email address to: Friends of the Coronado Library, PO Box 180172, Coronado CA 92178-0172 or visit www.CoronadoFOL.org

November 1, 2014

San Diego Book Launch: “Writing Past Fear: Free Your Butterfly” Workshop and Reading

San Diego Writers, Ink

The Inkspot

2:30-4:30

What story have you kept in the cocoon? What would happen if you wrote it out, just for you? In this dual focus workshop, we’ll consider our heroes, both famous and family, who have inspired us. Using them as inspiration, we’ll write our cocooned core stories. We’ll also explore the butterfly and hero metaphors via colored pencils and paper cutouts. Art supplies provided. No prior writing experience necessary.

2:30-3:30 Writing Workshop ($30 fee includes copy of the poetry collection, November Butterfly)

3:30-4:30: Reading and book signing $5 suggested donation.

November 10, 2014

Sonoma County Book Launch: “Writing Past Fear: Free Your Butterfly” Workshop and Reading

Sonoma County’s Coffee Catz holds a special place in my heart; not only did I get to spend Friday mornings for a few hours writing when my children were babies (Grandpa and Grandma took over every week so I could sneak away), but we even hosted the baby shower for my firstborn in the back room behind the velvet curtain. Owner Debbie chatted me sweetly all through my first pregnancy and the next. I am so thrilled to return to use that back room to celebrate November Butterfly’s release. Come out and write with me for an hour; we will follow our writing workshop with a reading and book signing. See the “Free Your Butterfly” description above. No prior writing or art experience needed.

Coffee Catz

6761 Sebastopol Ave

Sebastopol, CA

95472

2:00-3:00: Writing workshop (Free Your Butterfly, description above); $30 includes hour long workshop and a copy of the poetry collection, November Butterfly. Please contact me to pre-register or sign up at the door.

3:00-4:00: Reading and book signing; free of charge.

Photo by Robyn Beattie

November 11, 2014

Bay Area Reading and Book Signing for the poetry collection, November Butterfly: I’ll be reading with Saddle Road Press sisters Michelle Wing and Ruth Thompson

Moe’s Books, Berkeley

2476 Telegraph Ave

Berkeley, CA 94704

7:30 p.m.

More Information about the poetry collection November Butterfly:

Available on Amazon in paperback ($13.50) or Kindle ($7.99) editions.

Or support Saddle Road Press by ordering directly through my Contact page (send me a request) or by coming to one of my Events (workshops/readings) to pick up a copy in person.

Early praise:

Bhanu Kapil, author of “The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers”:

In which a “gorget” sparkles at the throat. Or: a rose, like a body, might be “resurrected.” Tania Pryputniewicz has written a book where these things become possible. Visible. Reading, we enter a world in which Guinevere loves and does not love; we glimpse her as a girl wearing “pale slippers like falcon hoods,/ so lethal, so light.” Later, she is a woman, shimmering, conflicted, drawn to a great, obliterating love. Will she “burn blue”? We watch her at the brink of lives and watch her choose.

Authors Note: Tania Pryputniewicz on November Butterfly, hosted by The Mom Egg

Blogpost Revising Guinevere, Ten Writers Transforming Rape, or When Trees Mattered More Than Boys

Cover photo: Robyn Beattie. Cover Design: Don Mitchell

Praise for Ruth Thompson’s “Woman with Crows” from the Saddle Road Press website:

Philip Terman, author of “The Torah Garden”:

“Ruth Thompson’s expansive voice is equally attuned to the swamp of the earth and to the ghost-filled haunts of the spirit worlds this rich collection embodies. Thompson’s range of reference – from Buddhist ghosts to Grimm fairy tales to Sumerian and Greek goddesses to personal and ancestral tales and legends – is wide and knowing, yet always transformed by a lived and experienced imagination, in a language that is wistful in its laments, sensual in its celebrations. These courageous poems journey the dark and beautiful mysteries and bravely offer, in a lyric that is fiercely wild and refreshingly independent, deeply earned wisdoms.”

Review of Woman with Crows at The California Journal of Women Writers, by Claire Farley

Praise for Michelle Wing’s “Body on the Wall” from the Saddle Road Press website:

Barbara Rockman, author of “Sting and Nest”:

“My garden pleads for one more dance,” writes Michelle Wing. This brave debut collection inhabits landscapes of violence and trauma, but its triumph resides in compassionate and unflinching poems that resound with insight into the resilience of ordinary lives. These poems emanate from the body of a woman eager to heal and be awed by nature’s abundance, to be embraced by human and animal love. Hers are transcendent songs of survival. Rich in metaphor, packing a punch to the gut and heart, Wing’s work is an outpouring of instruction and inspiration for any reader longing to deeply inhale our fragile, dangerous and astounding world.

Interview with Michelle Wing at The California Journal of Women Writers, conducted by Erika Rothberg.