Willona Sloan is an experienced workshop facilitator from Washington, DC. She teaches creative writing and arts writing workshops, and hosts the Writing with Willona series of literary social events such as happy hours, wine tastings and dinner parties for shy writers who want to have fun. Willona’s workshops are intended to foster dialogue and increase understanding within our global community.
Contact
Willona M. Sloan
E: willonasloan@gmail.com
Available workshop options include:
One-Day Writing Workshop
In a one-day seminar that combines reading, discussion and guided and independent writing exercises, students will read selections by U.S. writers of color and generate new writing in response to these works.
Multi-week Writing Workshop
Students will be given weekly reading and writing exercises. Students will read and discuss texts, create new writing and develop a creative project.
Collaborative Writing Project
This experience is a blend of writing instruction, guided discussion of relevant social issues and a performance or reading in a public forum.
Students will come together around a particular topic and create a collaborative creative work. The workshop would be suitable for either a small group or a community-wide project.
About Willona Sloan
Willona Sloan has published non-fiction, fiction and poetry in publications including BlazeVOX, Bohemia and Words Apart. She has published feature articles and arts and nightlife reviews in numerous publications, including AudioFemme, Northern Virginia, Publishers Weekly, The University of Virginia and Washington Post. She also released the digital collection Come to Our Show: Punk Show Flyers from D.C. to Down Under.
Willona has received an Artist Fellowship award from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She was awarded two Literary Arts residencies at Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada, and she attended the VONA writing workshop.
She has taught workshops in Washington, DC at the Writer’s Center, Flashpoint Gallery, Hamiltonian Gallery and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. She also led workshops in partnership with The Reykjavík UNESCO City of Literature and the Reykjavík International Literary Festival.
Writing with Willona Testimonials
“Willona Sloan organized and hosted writing workshops for the Reykjavík UNESCO City of Literature in connection with the 2015 Reykjavík International Literary Festival. The workshops brought us new perspectives on organizing such events, they were innovative and fun and Willona had a very good way of engaging the participants and bringing out their creativity.”
– On behalf of Reykjavík UNESCO City of Literature, Kristín Viðarsdóttir
“I attended Willona Sloan’s Write.Drink.Read. event as part of the Reykjavík International Literary Festival in September 2015. Willona is a welcoming, dynamic instructor. Her workshop inspired others to create, share, and get to know other like-minded people in the community. It was also refreshing to get an international perspective on the craft of writing.”
– Eliza Reid, writer and co-founder, Iceland Writers Retreat
Examples of Past Writing with Willona Workshops
Creative Writing Workshop
Reykjavík UNESCO City of Literature offers a creative writing workshop in connection with the Reykjavík International Literary Festival.
Learn how to create a literary remix. Participants will read and discuss texts by contemporary Native American poets and writers of the Harlem Renaissance in this creative writing workshop. Then, you will create your own poems and stories in response. Sample the lines you like and make them your own. Rearrange, rewrite, re-verse, remix!
A Happy Writing Hour
The Reykjavík UNESCO City of Literature and the Reykjavík International Literature Festival offer a happy writing hour at the Iðnó Theatre festival bar (2nd floor) on Thursday, September 10. Iðnó is located by the Reykjavík City Lake in Vonarstræti 3. Join us for a happy hour with creative writing prompts. We write. We drink. We read our work! Everyone is welcome, regardless of prior writing experience.
Willona M. Sloan 