Events, Classes, and Workshops

Join us for a captivating reading from writer, Safa Khatib, who will share work from her new collection A Dress of Locusts. The reading will be followed by a community open mic. 

Safa Khatib is a poet, translator, and teacher. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals, including Words Without Borders, The Baffler, The Kenyon Review and The White Review. She is the recipient of support from the US Fulbright Program and the Stadler Center for Poetry, among other institutions. In a review of her first book, A Dress of Locusts, the critic Dan Coates writes that she offers meditations on desire, faith and the ancient continuities between the so-called "West" and "Middle East". 

If you would like to read at the open mic, please send an email to driftlesswritingcenter@gmail.com with the subject line: IN-PERSON OPEN MIC, and include your name and contact information. Please prepare to read no more than 5 minutes of material.

Friday, September 18, 7-9pm

@ Vernon County Museum, 410 S Center Ave, Viroqua, WI 54665

Free and open to the public

In this workshop, we will engage in writing exercises that put us in relationship to a set of poems in translation. How can reading translated literature ignite our writing practice and help us imagine new ways of seeing ourselves and our work? All participants will recieve a physical reader of Arabic and Spanish poetry in translation provided by the facilitator. Writers of all genres and levels are welcome. 

Saturday, September 19th from 10am - 12pm

@ Vernon County Museum, 410 S Center Ave, Viroqua, WI 54665

To register, click here.

Sliding scale tuition ($20-$50); scholarships are also available (please follow steps in registration link for scholarships.)  

The Driftless Writing Center is excited to offer monthly opportunities to work in person with  your fellow writers. "In-Person Connect & Write" brings writers together for focused writing time in a supportive community of peers. Join us for an  hour of focused writing time at the Viroqua Food Co-op (in the seating area), one Sunday per month,  hosted by DWC board member Rose Davey.

Walk-ins are welcome but RSVPs are helpful.
To RSVP or for more information, please email Rose Davey: rosendavey@gmail.com

Free and open to the public, donations also welcome.

We look forward to writing with you in Viroqua! 

Join us for a monthly casual monthly writing opportunity. Drop in and out anytime, from 9 am to 11 am. Write, chat a bit with other writers if you like, but mostly, grab the time to write and feel motivated by the writing energy around you. 

To RSVP, please email DWC board member and La Crosse Write-In host Jodi Vandenberg-Daves at jodivandenbergdaves@gmail.com to let her know you're coming. This will help with reserving seats for writers at The Root Note, which can be busy on a Saturday morning. If you don't get at chance to RSVP, drop-ins are welcome.

Join us for our quarterly online submissions labs - a dedicated time to work on submitting your work for publication!

Join the DWC for online co-working sessions designed to help you power through those pesky submissions tasks. We'll meet online with the goal of sharing submission resources and stating our individual intentions for the session. Then we'll get to work on submitting our writing to the outlets of our choice.

Whether it’s journals, anthologies, residencies, or contests, if you’ve got work that needs to get out there, come co-work with other writers to get a jump start on the spring submissions season!

Please register for Connect & Write here to receive the Submissions Lab link. If you are already registered for Connect & Write, just log into the Submissions Lab with that same link.

The Driftless Writing Center will sponsor another year of “First Friday” online open mics. All members of the DWC community are encouraged to read their work and/or be part of the listening audience. Look for an email message a couple of weeks before each event for specific details, including information on how to register to read. “First Friday” events are free, though donations to support this and other DWC programs are very much appreciated!

Contact dwc.openmic@gmail.com for more information on signing up to read.

The Driftless Writing Center's casual drop-in “Connect & Write” sessions  will continue throughout 2025 on the schedule above. Write a novel, pull together that poetry chapbook, explore your cross-genre ambitions, or focus on a single essay. Please join us whenever you can to work toward your writing goals!

All meetings are held online via Zoom. The DWC’s “Connect & Write” program is free, but registration is required. To register, click here.

The McIntosh Memorial Library in Viroqua recently featured Contours: A Literary Landscape in their Adult Summer Reading Program. Lisa Henner discussed the history and goals of the Driftless Writing Center, David Hough talked about the making of the anthology, and contributor Janet Rowe read from her work.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of Contours: A Literary Landscape, you can do so here.

After the devasting flooding in late August and early September 2018, we wanted to do more than mop floors and haul away trash, and we decided to do what we do best—help people tell their stories. For more information on this ongoing community-service project, visit wisconsinfloodstories.org