Ekphrastic Poetry and Prose: Letting Art Inspire Your Writing with Shannon Kearns (Zoom)

In this two-hour generative class, we will explore how visual art can inspire and inform our writing.

Visual art is rich with opportunities to find story threads, potent images, and vast landscapes to weave into your writing. In this two-hour generative class, we will explore how visual art can inspire and inform our writing. After reading and responding to a few examples of ekphrastic work in the first hour, participants will have the opportunity to craft their own writing piece inspired by a chosen piece of art and receive feedback. You may bring a picture of a chosen artwork to the workshop. Examples will also be provided. 

BIO: Shannon Kearns is a Bram Stoker Award nominated writer of speculative poetry and fiction. Her debut poetry collection, The Uterus is an Impossible Forest was recently published by Raw Dog Screaming Press. Shannon’s writing has also appeared in HOWL, a women-in-horror anthology, and various literary journals. Her work has been supported by the Yale Writers Workshop, and she was awarded a residency in 2026 at Sundress Academy for the Arts. Shannon serves on the Housatonic Book Award panel for poetry. She teaches writing and literature at Sacred Heart University and lives in Connecticut with her wife and two children.