Events

Course 2, The High Priestess: Starts Sunday, April 23, 2-3:30 pm PST over zoom. Offered by Antioch University Continuing Education. Sign up here.

We explore how the High Priestess, Major Arcanum II, balances inner messages with outer expression and action by looking at the four Minor Arcana Twos in the tarot deck.  How do we find kindred hearts and share our love and trust on equal footing (Two of Cups)? How do we find the balance point for our will when in collaboration or conflict with another person or one or more of our own passions (Two of Wands)? How do we arrive at a truce point when taking into consideration two ideas or two minds committed to clarity (Two of Swords)? How do we balance our soul gold and our physical need to earn (Two of Disks) and withstand the process of inner and outer growth? These are the kinds of in-depth questions we will address in writing and discussion. You’ll learn a method for tarot journaling and a handful of other simple tools designed to help you begin and deepen your relationship to tarot. You’ll have the optional opportunity to create a personal tarot card using your own personal symbols that resonate for you.

(*This course just ended on April 9) Course 1: The Magician’s opportunities and lessons on the ground: the Ace of Cups, Ace of Wands, Ace of Disks, and Ace of Swords. Creating the extraordinary with the ordinary.

This gentle and nurturing series of workshops uses tarot journaling to explore the connection between each Major Arcanum (soul card) and the four lessons and opportunities afforded by the four Minor Arcana (daily life cards) that correspond numerically in the tarot deck. We start with the Magician (Arcanum I) and look at how the Magician uses the ordinary four elements to create extraordinary experiences through the four Aces. How do we create magical experiences of the heart (Ace of Cups)? How do we create magical experiences using our creativity (Ace of Wands)? How do we create magical experiences through making physical objects and nurturing wealth (Ace of Disks)? And how do we create magical experiences using our minds (Ace of Swords)? These are the kinds of in-depth questions we will address in writing and discussion.

 

Writing the Wound to Find a Way Home: Memoir and poetry as path to forgiveness: Please join us at the Central Public Library on Tuesday, April 4, in the Shiley Special Events Suite at the downtown San Diego Central Library for our author presentation. We will both be reading from our books and speaking about our journeys to healing. Please join us from 6-7:30. Free and open to the public. Light refreshments and a raffle (we will be giving away copies of our books and consults).

Tania Pryputniewicz is the author of the full-length poetry collection November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, 2014), Heart’s Compass Tarot: Discover Tarot Journaling and Create Your Own Cards (Two Fine Crows Books, 2021), and a memoir-in-poems, The Fool in the Corn (Saddle Road Press, 2022). A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Tania teaches poetry and tarot-inspired writing classes for San Diego Writers, Ink, Antioch University’s Continuing Education program, and privately through her website. She lives in Coronado with her husband, three children, Siberian Husky, a formerly feral feline cat named Luna, and a kitten rescue named Clementine Quill.

Calling All Teen Writers  (Free Poetry Workshop)

Do you love to write? Are you ready to take the next step and submit your work to this year’s KidsWrite! youth writing contest (sponsored by the San Diego Writers Festival)? In this workshop, we will write to a series of prompts meant to help you generate new writing (poetry, short stories, graphic stories) around this year’s theme, “The Day You Begin,” inspired by the book with the same title by Jaqueline Woodson, illustrated by Rafael Lopez. Bring paper, pencil, and your passion for writing. Sign up here at the Coronado Public Library for our zoom session held on Saturday, March 4 at 4 pm: Teen Poetry Workshop.

Saddle Road Press Presents:

Diane Gilliam, author of the new novel LINNEY STEPP, and Tania Pryputniewicz, author of the new memoir-in-poems THE FOOL IN THE CORN, will read from their books and talk about writing in this Saddle Road Press Conversation held over zoom; free and open to the public.

Sunday, February 19

3 pm PST/6 pm EST

Moderated by Saddle Road Press editor and co-founder Ruth Thompson.*To receive the zoom link, please register here for Diane and Tania in Conversation.

Diane Gilliam has published four poetry collections: Dreadful Wind & Rain, Kettle Bottom, One of Everything, and Recipe for Blackberry Cake, a chaphook. Her work has earned a Pushcart Prize, the Ohioana Library Association Book of the Year in Poetry, the 2008 Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing, and the Gift of Freedom from the A Room of Her Own Foundation. She lives and writes in Akron, Ohio, and teaches in regional writing workshops, and in the low-residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College. This is her first novel.

*You can order Linney Stepp everywhere books are available. Here’s the link to Diane’s Saddle Road Press page which has links to a number of options. We appreciate your support with reviews.

About Linney Stepp: “In Linney Stepp, acclaimed poet Diane Gilliam gives us the story of a girl who breaks free from the force-field of her family to become herself. When we meet Linney, she is about to be traded for her distant cousin Robbie so that he can help her dad on the farm and she can help his mother keep an eye on Aunt Hesty, who is prone to wandering and revelations….Before this rich and profound novel is over, what they have learned in exile-how to claim their own authority-will have transformed their lives. Set in Appalachian Kentucky in the early 1900s, and illuminated by dreams, myths, and fairy tales, Linney Stepp offers its readers transformation, too. By the novel’s end, Linney has learned how to say NO to what would harm her. She has grown the strength to ask what she needs to ask and say what she needs to say. Her story shows how.” -George Ella Lyon, Kentucky Poet Laureate 2015-2016 and author of With a Hammer for My Heart

Tania Pryputniewicz is the author of November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, 2014), Heart’s Compass Tarot: Discover Tarot Journaling and Create Your Own Cards (Two Fine Crows Books, 2021), and a memoir-in-poems, The Fool in the Corn (Saddle Road Press, 2022). A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Tania lives in Coronado and teaches poetry and tarot-inspired writing classes for San Diego Writers, Ink and Antioch University’s Continuing Education program.

About The Fool in the Corn: In her second full-length collection of poems, Tania Pryputniewicz evokes the harsh realities of a childhood in a Midwestern commune, coming of age in a small town on the Russian River in California, finding herself as a poet, navigating the difficult years of marriage and motherhood, and the heartbreaking loss of her own mother. The image of the Tarot Fool, wise innocent and eternal adventurer, weaves throughout the book.

*You can order The Fool in the Corn everywhere books are available; here’s the link to Tania’s page at Saddle Road Press with links to a number of options. We appreciate your support with reviews.

A Tarot Garden of Ancestor Verses: Ancestor-Inspired Poetry, Prose and Art

I’m delighted to announce a celebration of the harvest of a year of ancestor inspired tarot reflections and personal tarot card art by students of Tarot as Inner Teacher: Using Court Cards to Explore Ancestors (offered by Antioch University’s Continuing Education Program). Each of our four featured readers used the tarot court cards, writing, and personal tarot cardmaking as a bridge to connect to and honor ancestors in the family tree. Presenters include Valerie Coleman-Palansky, Alley S. Greymond, Pratishta Natarajan, and Deborah Smith.

Sunday, January 29, 2023

1 pm PST / 4 pm EST

Free and open to the public and held over zoom. 

Join us for poetry, prose, and artwork based on the Tarot Kings, Queens, Knights and Pages. Depending on the deck maker, these court cards or people go by various modern designations such as Shaman, Priestess, Sage, or Man, Woman, and Child (and more). This reading is free and open to the public and held over zoom on January 29 from 1-2 pm pst. Pre-registration is required; sign up here to receive the zoom link for A Tarot Garden of Ancestor Verses.

First Friday Poetry Reading

Address for the event at Liberty Station:

2730 Historic Decatur Road, #204

San Diego, CA 92106

First Friday Poetry Reading

Address for the event at Liberty Station:

2730 Historic Decatur Road, #204

San Diego, CA 92106

Ukrainian-born, Russian-speaking Jew, Jane (Yevgenia!) Muschenetz was granted asylum in San Diego as a refugee from the USSR at 10 years old. Today, she is a fully-grown MIT nerd, Pushcart-nominated emerging writer, and mom to two very American kids. In 2022, Jane won the Good Life Review Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the Jacar Press Chapbook Prize. All the Bad Girls Wear Russian Accents (Kelsay Books, 2023) is her first collection. 

About All the Bad Girls Wear Russian Accents: Written with humor and heart during the pandemic and the Russian invasion of her home country of Ukraine, Jane Muschenetz’ debut poetry chapbook is a wry poetic exploration of life as an outsider, our fraught relationship with societal norms, and our common humanity. Connect with Jane and her work at www.PalmFrondZoo.com and in various publications. 

Katie Manning is the founding editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. She’s the author of Tasty Other, which won the 2016 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and her most recent chapbook is How to Play (Louisiana Literature Press, 2022). Her poem “What to Expect” was featured on season 3 of the Poetry Unbound podcast. Agape Editions will publish her next book, Hereverent, in April 2023.

Book Signing for The Fool in the Corn

Come celebrate the arrival of The Fool in the Corn, my memoir-in-poems. In honor of the tarot autobiography thread woven throughout this book, I am giving away free three-card tarot readings with purchase of the book on Winter Equinox at a beautiful sanctuary of a store called L.E.A.F. in Carlsbad…Live Enlightened and Free’s Chris Parwell, owner, has curated an amazing space with fountains, artwork, and an array of metaphysical gifts including gems and books and incense and beautiful greeting cards and more (perfect for holiday shopping). I’ll be at the edge of the store under a pop-up tent; bring your coat, as we will be sitting outside. I can’t wait to celebrate with you in this incredibly healing space.

Winter Equinox Book Signing for The Fool in the Corn

LEAF

3225 Business Park Drive, Suite 4

Vista, CA 92081

December 21

11 am until 2 pm

Here’s my latest interview about risk-taking during the process of writing The Fool in the Corn and here’s a review of The Fool in the Corn, written by Glynn Young at Tweetspeak Poetry. Thank you to Laura and Glynn at Tweetspeak for your time and energy supporting the book.

San Diego Writers, Ink is hosting its Fall for Writing Conference this weekend. Join me in-person Sunday, November 13, from 1-2:45 for Poetry for Memoir. Do you have a story about your own life that won’t let go of you? Come explore the ways poetry and memoir rely on powerful images and their accretion towards building a narrative around an aspect of experience. In this workshop, we will look at example poetry collections and memoirs as well as engage in several writing exercises designed to help you begin mining your life story on the page. This is a “Show up, Write, and Share” opportunity. All level of writer welcome.

Held at Inspirations Gallery, Barracks 16, Liberty Station.

The San Diego Writers Festival is held on October 8, 2022 at the Coronado Public Library and at Coronado High School from 9-6 pm; free and open to the public! See the full  list of events for the day, a fabulous line up of free panels, classes, and presentations—no joke—I can’t wait. And it will be held in person!!! Everything from poetry to journalism to publicity to social justice and food writing to fiction and the art of the interview and more.

“Writing to Heal in Times of Struggle” panel, Saturday, October 8, 1 pm, Room 503 at Coronado High School: I’ll be speaking about my journey to healing through writing my memoir-in-poems, The Fool in the Corn with three other fabulous writers discussing their books in the context of this theme: Gina Simmons Schneider, PhD, author of Frazzle Brain: Break Free from Anxiety, Anger and Stress Using Advanced Discoveries in Neuropsychology, Madonna Treadway, author of Grief Hack: A Creative Process for Coping with Everyday Loss, and Leah Aguirre, LCSW, author of The Girl’s Guide to Relationships, Sexuality & Consent: Tools to Help Teens Stay Safe, Empowered, and Confident (co-written with Geraldine O’Sullivan LCSW). Come join us and I promise you’ll come away with some fabulous tools for writing your way through your own challenging material.

2022 Tarot as Inner Teacher: Using Court Cards to Explore Ancestors 

This gentle and nurturing series of workshops uses tarot journaling to explore lineage and ancestry using the court, or people cards, in the tarot deck. What did your ancestors bring to the table? Which doors did they open for you? Which challenges did your ancestors leave unsolved? Which patterns are you being asked to continue, and which patterns are calling to be disrupted or healed? These are the kinds of in-depth questions we will address in writing and discussion.

These four six-week courses can be taken singly or consecutively. Each six-week course begins with the anchoring Ace of each suit and proceeds through the stages of growth and maturation symbolized on the four cards of the suit, from green learner, like the Page, to mature, fully formed decision-making Queen or King.  You’ll learn a method for tarot journaling and a handful of other simple tools designed to help you begin and deepen your relationship to tarot. You’ll have the optional opportunity to create two personal tarot cards: one card to honor the ancestor, and one card for personal symbol or promise imagery.

No prior experience with the tarot or with art-making is necessary (in fact we will check writing and art critics at the door every class). Tarot images from a variety of decks will be provided, though you are welcome to work with your own deck of choice.

Offered through Antioch University’s Continuing Education Program. Courses will continue to run on Sundays (Course Three, the Disks Family is currently wrapping up); our next session starts on Sunday, September 4, 2022 (Swords Family) from 2-3:30 pm PST; course cost is $99 per six week session. Sign up here on  Antioch’s website here for Tarot as Inner Teacher: Using Court Cards to Explore Ancestry.

Independent Book store Day, Saturday April 30, 2022 at Poet’s Corner:

I’m delighted to show up at the “Magic Circle” at Poet’s Corner Book Shop in Duncans Mills (Russian River area) this Saturday, where I join Rune reader Jessica Superball to read complementary tarot cards with purchase of Heart’s Compass Tarot: Discover Tarot Journaling and Create Your Own Cards (Two Fine Crows Books, 2021) on the bookshop patio. We are celebrating Independent Bookstore Day Saturday April 30 from noon to five pm.

Local authors Toby Neal, John Mark Schnick, John McCarty, Neal Grace and Daniel Dawson will all be reading from their books at Poet’s Corner as well. I’ll also have copies of November Butterfly (my first poetry collection, Saddle Road Press, 2014) on hand.  Come listen to music with Joanne and Felipe Ferraz  (Brazilian and American duet).

Also taking place on Saturday in the Duncas Mills Shopping Village: At Sophie’s Cellars Wine Shop, a reading and book signing with Iris Dunkle, award-winning literary biographer, essayist and poet. At Revolution Vinyl and Vintage, you’ll find children’s face painting with local children’s author Tracy Stanley. And check out the lemonade stand at Alta California Provision! Full list of events here: Poet’s Corner.

Honoring the Inner Valentine: Make Your Ace of Cups

February 14, Noon to 2 pm PST over zoom / $28

Valentine’s Day often focuses on “lovers love;” but I am delighted to start a new yearly tradition of making a tarot Ace of Cups card alongside other kindred tarot lovers and tarot curious seekers in community in tribute to the inner heart, the Inner Valentine, every February 14. It’s a way for me to also honor Heart’s Compass Tarot, which was published on Valentine’s Day last year.

If you only make one tarot card from the deck in your lifetime, I say, let it begin with love—the Ace of Cups, card of the heart. Whether you’ve been working your way through the Heart’s Compass Tarot workbook on your own or you are new to tarot and the Ace of Cups, you are welcome to join us for a loving and lively midday exploration.

In this 2-hour workshop, held on Valentine’s Day from Noon -2 pm PST over zoom, we will:

• Look at some beautiful examples of Ace of Cups tarot cards from a variety of decks
• Reflect, write, and share about our own particular heart-joys and future heart-wishes
• Begin to make our own Ace of Cups card based on personal heart’s desires

To register: Use the contact form on my site to drop me a line to let me know you wish to join. You’ll receive instructions for what to bring to class, our zoom invite, and payment options. Honoring the Inner Valentine: Make Your Ace of Cups meets on February 14, Noon PST-2 pm on zoom. Course cost: $28.

Here Comes the Sun: Calling All Teen Poets

*Free Teen Poetry Workshop: Sunday February 19, 2-3 pm over Zoom:

Do you love to write poetry? Are you ready to take the next step and submit your work to this year’s KidsWrite! poetry contest? Every year we put out a call to youth writers. We are eager to hear from the vibrant and powerful minds of our younger generation: You! In this workshop, we will write to a series of poetry prompts meant to help you generate new poetry around this year’s theme, “Here Comes the Sun.” Bring paper, pencil, and your passion for poetry. Pre-register through Coronado Public Library here to join us: Here Comes the Sun.

A Tarot Garden of Verses: A Reading of Tarot Inspired Poetry and Prose

I’m delighted to announce a celebration of the harvest of a year of tarot reflections by students of my Tarot as Inner Teacher courses (offered by Antioch University’s Continuing Education Program). Each of our four featured readers used writing as a bridge to discover insights at the crossroads of tarot imagery, the heart, and the world.  Join us for poetry, prose, and musings based on the Star, Sun, Fool, Temperance, Tower, Empress cards and more. This reading is free and open to the public and held over zoom on Sunday, January 16 from 1-2 pm. Pre-registration is required; sign up here to receive the zoom link for A Tarot Garden of Verses.

Meet the readers:

Elizabeth Brennan

My name is Elizabeth and I live in Sonoma County, CA. I work full time as a teacher in an alternative high school. My home is in the country and my favorite pastime is taking long walks along the dirt roads that border apple orchards and vineyards – and/or driving out to the coast (Bodega Bay) and taking long walks along the beach with family and friends. Studying the tarot with Tania as a guide has inspired me to pay more attention to my intuition. I feel more open to subtle messages as life unfolds within me. Each card I study speaks like a song, poem or painting. Interacting with the tarot provides me with the sensation of an inner deepening and trust, as well as a guidance that supports me amidst the challenges and surprises that life brings daily.

Alley Greymond

I’m Alley Greymond and I live and work in Seattle, Washington on Duwamish Land. I use she/her pronouns. I am driven to learn and at various times have studied Accounting, Psychology, Systems Design, Commercial Real Estate Management, and Creative Non-Fiction. While my current position is administrative support, what I do find value in at work is leading  and working with different Employee Resource Groups towards perspective shifts and workplace equity. I’m not used to using my intuition to a robust capacity and when I first joined Tania’s class I felt as though I’d have nothing to offer. What a welcoming group of women and Tania creates an environment for one to think, feel and share. I appreciate having had an opportunity to explore Tarot with these women.

Valerie Coleman-Palansky

I am a 5 number and my archetype is The Hierophant: I am inspired by teaching and learning situations, honoring and valuing the sacred within as well as the unlimited source and resource provided by that inner faith and intuition. I am a psychotherapist, NYU adjunct professor, and and a registered Jin Shin Do acupressurist living in the Bronx, New York. I am married and have two almost adult daughters. I engage in many creative arts including writing. I have been specifically involved with tarot and metaphysical doings from my teen years. I synchronistically found Tania and her Heart’s Compass Tarot Journaling group and was hooked via the Aces immersion. My first deck was The Golden Dawn Tarot and my most recent is Daughters of the Moon.

Deborah Smith

My name is Debby and I live in New Paltz, New York. I have semi-retired this year from a 40 year career practicing and teaching bodywork based in Chinese Medicine. My work with clients includes assisting them in tapping into their inner wisdom and supporting their intuitive connection to their own health and happiness. I have revived my connection to Tarot as a doorway to my own intuition in the last two years and Tania’s workshops have been a wonderful part of that. I’ve done a fair amount of writing related to my profession, but these writing experiences have been very rich and stimulating, both because of my own connections and being privileged to hear from the others in the group. Pulling tarot cards has become like having conversations with a dear and trusted friend: always relevant and always fascinating.

Fall Tarot Webinars with Antioch University’s Continuing Education Program

Tarot as Inner Teacher: Meet the Major Arcana (Sun, Judgment, World)

What do the Sun, Judgment, and World tarot cards have in common? They signify ways we arrive at our potential, each card with its own particular invitation: The Sun card invites us to seek out sources of illumination, Judgment invites us to confront judgments we hold about ourselves and others, and the World invites us to bring our gifts forward into the community.

In this four-week webinar series, you’ll have the opportunity to explore both the universal and personal ways of arriving at one’s potential. We use the lens of tarot’s archetypes to study how these three cards hold keys to growth. You’ll learn a method for tarot journaling and a handful of other simple tools designed to help you begin a relationship with the tarot. Instructor will provide tarot images and optional playsheets to complete between sessions. No prior knowledge of the tarot is necessary.

Five-Part Webinar Series / $79 October 23 to November 13th

1:00 pm (Pacific Time) / 4:00 pm (Eastern Time)

*Sign up here for Tarot as Inner Teacher: Sun, Judgment, World

Tarot for Two, Including You? A Reading and Discussion with Mary Allen and Tania Pryputniewicz

In celebration of the publication of Heart’s Compass Tarot: Discover Tarot Journaling and Create Your Own Cards, two longtime tarot buddies, Mary Allen and Tania Pryputniewicz, read from their essays in the “Tarot for Two” chapter based on a process of working with the cards they have used for years. The reading includes example cards and discussion of process, followed by Q and A.

The Heart’s Compass approach invites you to begin or deepen not only your relationship with tarot but with your own inner workings while providing an image-rich focus for a dynamic, ongoing dialogue between you and potentially, a tarot companion.

Free, open to the public, and held over zoom on Tuesday, September 14 at 4 pm PST.

Register to join the zoom call through SDWI here:

Heart’s Compass Tarot: Tarot for Two with Mary and Tania

Shaking the Tree, Volume 3, Anthology Reading and Party

I’ll be joining the line up of eight readers for “Shaking the Tree, Volume 3,” a wonderful collection, non-fiction, based on the them, “I didn’t see that one coming…” I’ll be reading from “Mom’s Night Out and The Trickster,” about the unlikely intersection of a marriage challenge, a Mom’s night out, and the tarot.

September 11, 2021, at 2:30 Pm PST: The event is hosted by the San Diego Memoir Writers Association; you can sign up through Eventbrite to join the zoom call

(or you can also watch the event on Facebook Live).

Fall Tarot Webinars with Antioch University’s Continuing Education Program

Tarot as Inner Teacher: Meet the Major Arcana (Tower, Star, Moon)

What do the Tower, Star, and Moon tarot cards have in common? They signify ways we become illuminated, each card with its own particular invitation: The Tower invites us to shine a light on structures no longer serving us, the Star invites us to radiate with our own star-power, and the Moon invites us to rediscover the inner moon-scape of dreams and veiled aspects of the self.

In this four-week webinar series, you’ll have the opportunity to explore both the universal and personal ways we open to illuminating insights and grow in awareness. We use the lens of tarot’s archetypes to study how these cards hold keys to these processes. You’ll learn a method for tarot journaling and a handful of other simple tools designed to help you begin a relationship with the tarot. Instructor will provide tarot images and optional playsheets to complete between sessions. No prior knowledge of the tarot is necessary.

Four-Part Webinar Series / $79 September 11, 2021 to October 2, 2021

1:00 pm (Pacific Time) / 4:00 pm (Eastern Time) 

*Sign up here for Tarot as Inner Teacher: Tower, Star, Moon

Heart’s Compass Tarot Book Signing

Join me on Sunday, July 18 at Bay Books Coronado for my first in-person Heart’s Compass Tarot book signing. I’m delighted to finally be able to come out and mingle in person (what a blessing); you’ll find me at my own table in front of the bookstore.

I’m giving away free ten minute 3 card on-the-spot tarot reading with purchase of the book that day. Come support Two Fine Crows (wonderful small press) and Bay Books Coronado (wonderful local bookstore). I can’t wait to see you!

Bay Books Coronado

Sunday July 18

Noon -2 pm

1007 Orange Ave

Coronado, CA 92118

2021 San Diego Writers Festival (two Saturdays, July 17 and 31 over zoom)

The 2021 San Diego Writers Festival (*FREE) opens with a celebration of words—spoken, written, and performed! Tune in to hear beloved spoken word artist, Gill Sotu, teen poet laureates, Marissa Michel and Sasa Aakil, and yours truly, Tania Pryputniewicz reading poems speaking to the 2021 Theme: What the World Needs Now. This portion of the programming runs July 17, 2021 9:30-10:00 am. Take advantage of these two days of excellent, free programming: San Diego Writers Festival Spoken Word

Summer Tarot Webinars with Antioch University’s Continuing Education Program

Tarot as Inner Teacher: Meet the Major Arcana (Hanged One, Death, Temperance, and Devil) 

What do the Hanged One, Death, Temperance, and the Devil tarot cards have in common? They signify ways to let go, each with their own particular invitation: The Hanged One invites us to look for the silver lining in reversals, the Death or Phoenix card invites us to accept seasons of change, the Temperance card invites to find creative ways to weather the tempering forces of life itself, and the Devil card invites us to use humor to gain perspective and explore our bedevilments and addictions.

In this five-week webinar series, you’ll have the opportunity to explore both the universal and personal ways of letting go. We use the lens of tarot’s archetypes to study how these four cards hold keys to newfound illumination, acceptance, creativity, and humor. You’ll learn a method for tarot journaling and a handful of other simple tools designed to help you begin a relationship with the tarot. Instructor will provide tarot images and optional playsheets to complete between sessions. No prior knowledge of the tarot is necessary.

Five-Part Webinar Series / $99, July 17, 24, 31 , and Aug 7, 14, 2021
1:00 pm (Pacific Time) / 4:00 pm (Eastern Time) Sign up here: Tarot as Inner Teacher (Hanged One-Devil)

May Tarot Webinars with Antioch University

Tarot as Inner Teacher: Meet the Major Arcana (Strength, Hermit, Fortune, Justice)

What do the Strength, Hermit, Fortune, and Justice tarot cards have in common? They signify ways to gather or consolidate, each with their own particular invitation: Strength invites us to tap into our personal and animal-nature reserves, the Hermit invites us step away to integrate experiences before returning with the lamp of wisdom, the Fortune card invites us to assess how we define success and cope with cycles of gain, loss, and cross-fertilization, and the Justice card invites us to explore choice and consequence and the context of the system defining justice.

In this five-week webinar series, you’ll have the opportunity to explore both the universal and personal ways of gathering. We use the lens of tarot’s archetypes to study how these four cards hold keys to newfound courage, truths, resources, and findings. You’ll learn a method for tarot journaling and a handful of other simple tools designed to help you begin a relationship with the tarot. Instructor will provide tarot images and optional playsheets to complete between sessions. No prior knowledge of the tarot is necessary.Five-Part Webinar Series / $99, May 15, 22, 29, June 5, 12 , 2021
1:00 pm (Pacific Time) / 4:00 pm (Eastern Time) Sign up here: Tarot as Inner Teacher (Strength-Justice)

Hidden Worlds: Our Oceans and the Life they Support

Free Teen Poetry Workshop: April 17: 3:30-4:30 pm PST

Come celebrate National Poetry Month and write poems based on the theme of Hidden Worlds: Our Oceans and the Life they Support. We start with the sea and the shore we see, travel high to celebrate the life in the sky, and dive deep to explore the worlds beneath the lid of the sea. Come write to a series of prompts to help you generate new poetry around this year’s San Diego AAP-CA3 Children’s Art Council’s Youth Art Exhibition theme of ocean conservation. Bring paper, pencil, and your passion for poetry. This workshop will be led by teen poet and AAP Children’s Art Council Volunteer, Tae Jong Yun and Tania Pryputniewicz. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Tania teaches at San Diego Writers, Ink and Antioch University’s Continuing Education Program.

Sign up here for this free teen poetry workshop, taught over Zoom through the Coronado Public Library.

Poets of Heart’s Compass Tarot: A Reading

Hosted by SDWI on Saturday March 20

4 pm PST / 5 pm MT / 7 pm EST

*Free and open to the public

Tarot cards, rich with story seeds, have inspired poetry for years. Why does the Fool cross the bridge? What does the High Priestess preside over? Who is the Queen of Swords? What call to action does the Goddess Kali, in her role as Tower, invite? How is the Korean deck, the Hwa-tu structured? In celebration of the publication of Heart’s Compass Tarot, we gather our contributing poets together to read their tarot poems and discuss the role of tarot in their work:

Tarot Luminary Rachel Pollack

reads with sister contributors:

Annie Finch, Tanya Ko Hong, Marianela Medrano, Carrie Nassif, Tania Pryputniewicz (reading poetry by ruth weiss), Lisa Rizzo and Christine Stewart-Nuñez

The reading will be conducted over zoom and the corresponding cards for the poems will be shared on the screen; participants have the opportunity to ask questions following the reading. The poems appear in the Tarot and Poetry section of Heart’s Compass Tarot. Pre-register for the tarot poetry reading here.

March Webinars with Antioch University

Tarot as Inner Teacher: Meet the Major Arcana (Emperor, Hierophant, Lovers, Chariot)

What do the Emperor, Hierophant, Lovers, and Chariot tarot cards have in common? They signify ways to approach leading, each with their own particular invitation: The Emperor invites us to show up in a leadership role in our community, the Hierophant invites us to explore what we’ve learned through spiritual teachers or becoming a spiritual role model, the Lover invites us to lead with the heart, and the Chariot invites us to choose our vehicle for leading in our career or other public role. In this five-week webinar series, you’ll have the opportunity to explore both the universal and personal ways of approaching leadership through the lens of tarot’s archetypes. You’ll learn a method for tarot journaling and a handful of other simple tools designed to help you begin a relationship with the tarot. Instructor will provide tarot images and optional playsheets to complete between sessions. No prior knowledge of the tarot is necessary.

Five-Part Webinar Series / $99
March 27, April 3, 10, 17, 24, 2021
1:00 pm (Pacific Time) / 4:00 pm (Eastern Time) Sign up here: Tarot as Inner Teacher (Emperor-Chariot)

Heart’s Compass 30-Day Tarot Poetry Challenge Class

Heart’s Compass Tarot Book Launch:

Join us on Valentine’s Day as we celebrate the publication of Heart’s Compass Tarot: Discover Tarot Journaling and Create Your Own Cards. Ruth Thompson of Two Fine Crows Books will anchor our discussion panel. From the tarot curious to the tarot savvy, Heart’s Compass Tarot provides a guide to using the tarot as a compass to navigate life, focus creativity, inspire writing, and forge a deeper connection to the self.

Tarot journaling provides the basis for discovering personal symbols for use in meditation, dreamwork, and creation of the student’s own unique cards. In this conversation, the author discusses Heart’s Compass Tarot’s exercises with contributors Lisa, Carrie, and Gillian to illuminate the process of arriving at their personal tarot cards.

February 14, 2021 at 1 pm PST / 2 pm MT/ 4 pm EST

*This is a free online event Facebook Live Event hosted at Heart’s Compass Tarot and Writing

Heart’s Compass tarot can be ordered at Bookshop, Amazon, Indebound, Barnes and Noble, and Powell’s.

Artwork from Heart’s Compass Tarot

Free Presentation for San Diego Memoir Association

Using Tarot to Access Life Events & Create a Tarot Timeline. As writers, we work to establish a practice of engaging deeply with our inner and outer lives in the service of writing compelling work. Ideally, we put ourselves in front of the blank page on a regular basis and this practice means we live in an ongoing conversation with our muse and our projects. While tarot has been used as a spiritual tool for self-discovery and divination, it can also be used as a visual prompt for helping us access our own life events when we connect imagery in the cards to life experiences, either those we’ve had or those we can imagine having.

Saturday February 6, 2:30 pm PST

*Please use the contact form on my site for details about joining the zoom call.

Free Poetry Workshop for Teens:

What the World Needs Now: Calling All Teen Poets. Do you love to write poetry? Are you ready to take the next step and submit your work to this year’s KidsWrite! poetry contest? Last year we put out a call to youth writers on the topic of Freedom and received beautiful responses looking deeply at the world around us. Now more than ever, facing pandemic uncertainty and healing divides on so many fronts (racial, economic, healthcare, school access) at all levels from institutions to families, we are eager to hear from the vibrant and powerful minds of our younger generation: You! In this workshop, we will write to a series of poetry prompts meant to help you generate new poetry around this year’s San Diego Writers’ Festival KidsWrite! poetry contest theme, “What the World Needs Now.” Bring paper, pencil, and your passion for poetry.

Saturday February 13 at 2 pm PST, sign up at: cplevents.org.

*Offered through the Coronado Public Library, in support of the San Diego Writer’s Festival upcoming KidsWrite! contest call for entries. I will post a link shortly to details for signing up for the poetry workshop. For more information about the KidsWrite! contest (free entry, deadline February 28, 2021,  visit San Diego Writers Festival KidsWrite! page.

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)

Sign up here: Tarot as Inner Teacher: Meet the Major Arcana

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.

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.

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

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”

Sign up here at SDWI

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.

Sign up here for the workshop at San Diego Writers, Ink

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.

Poster Design: Michelle Wing

Poster Author Photo of Tania: Robyn Beattie

Author photo at top of this post: Lisa Rizzo