Educational Background/Training

• M.A. in English Writing from Hollins College
• M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Miami
• Co-founder and Director, Muse Writers Center: Guided workshops in Memoir, Fiction & Poetry
• Founder and Executive Director, Seven Cities Writers Project: Guides workshops in Memoir & Poetry, Norfolk and Portsmouth City Jails. Memoir workshop of the LGBTQ Experience, LGBT Life Center, Norfolk. Resistance & Resilience: A Memoir Workshop of the Jim Crow Era, Colored Community Library Museum, Portsmouth. Micro Memoir Workshop, Portsmouth Arts & Cultural Center and Williamsburg Landing.

About the Artist/Ensemble

Lisa Beech Hartz directs Seven Cities Writers Project, a non-profit corporation that brings cost-free creative writing workshops to underserved communities. She currently guides workshops for men and women in Norfolk and Portsmouth City Jails. She has guided memoir workshops at the Portsmouth Arts & Cultural Center, the LGBT Life Center, and The Portsmouth Colored Community Library Museum, and Williamsburg Landing: An Assisted Living Facility. A poet who specializes in response to visual art, she has published one full-length and two chapbook ekphrastic collections. The Body Taken, her second full-length ekphrastic collection is forthcoming from the University of Massachusetts Press in 2027. Her writing has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Poet Lore, Crazyhorse, Blackbird, The Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere. Co-founder and former co-director of The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, Lisa has been teaching community writing workshops for more than 20 years. Sharing her love of creative expression with those who have been historically excluded is her passion. She often uses visual art in her workshops to unlock that expression, and to invite the writer to engage with the image in an unintimidating, supportive environment. Lisa holds two master’s degrees, an M.A. in English Writing from Hollins College and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Miami. She lives in Portsmouth with her family.

Educational Program Description

Talk Back to Art: A Community Creative Writing Workshop or Talk Back to History: A Community Creative Writing Workshop
2 hours
Participants will create a piece of writing inspired by and responding to thoughtful interaction with  visual images or objects, artistic or historical. Images may be presented via PowerPoint, or within the gallery or exhibit on display. Participants are guided through a step-by-step process of looking, analyzing, writing, sharing, and revising. No previous writing experience necessary. A reading of generated work closes out the program. Designed for both art museums and cultural/historical institutions. Adaptable to detention facilities. Versatile — engaging for ages 9 to adult.

Audiences

• College/University Students
• Adults