If You Have Ever...
* Gotten part-way into a writing project and then lost steam
* Had your friends tell you, "You should write a book!"
* Wondered what it would be like to take a writing class
* Taken some classes but felt unsupported or unseen by the teacher or other participants
* Kept a journal, but don't know what to do with the material you generated
* Doubted if anyone would be interested in what you have to say
* Felt isolated in your writing process and longed for support
* Compared yourself to other writers and thought "What's the use?"
* Been afraid to write your truth because what if people got mad at you
* Read The New Yorker or another prestigious publication, and thought, "My poems are as good as those!"
* Longed to have a community of other creative, supportive people around you
* Felt confused and overwhelmed by the task of submitting work for publication
* Felt the urge to write, but wished for guidance and inspiration
* Read some of Alison's poetry or essays out in the world and wanted to work with her
You have come to the right place! I invite you to try a four-week generative writing class with me where we'll write our faces off, share, vent, celebrate, and add to our toolboxes. It's my joy to help writers find and strengthen their own voices, and to cultivate inspiring circles of creative support. I am a big literary nerd, constantly reading and reveling in writers who help expand my world, and I love to share those writers with my students as a way for all of us to grow together into the artists we dream of becoming.
She is a heroic humanist. Alison takes poetry's service to human life seriously - that the inner life can't be killed. She is a court jester, a life coach, a can can dancer.
-Tony Haogland, author of What Narcissism Means to Me
Praise for Alison
Alison Luterman’s online writing classes are a wonderful blend of inspiration, encouragement and comfort. With a deft touch that conveys compassion, wisdom and humor, Alison guides the class conversations in ways that invite all participants into the group. Whether it’s a three-session experience or a class that spans several weeks, Alison manages to create a community of writers that support and nourish one another and help each participant move further along in his/her/their craft. Wherever you are on your writing journey, a class taught by Alison Luterman will enhance and enrich your ability to go deeper in your own work and connect with others along the path.
-Carole, student
Like Alison’s poetry, her classes are warm, accessible, inspiring, magical. She sets up the space with handouts galore, a welcoming vibe, a slew of poetry wisdom, conversation among participants, time to write and share, and in this environment—poof! Poems are born.
-Susan, student
Newest Release
In the Time of Great Fires (2020)
"Alison Luterman’s wonderful new collection, In The Time of Great Fires, engages deeply with the world, weaving past, present and future to consider our shared humanity. Sometimes with humor, always with heart, Luterman insists on compassion, a recognition of “the slender, fraying threads” we all dangle from. Particularly powerful are poems that illuminate the lives of girls and women: a grandmother who left Russia at fifteen, then “settled into her fate,” the gun control activist Emma Gonzalez, “not ashamed, not compliant. . . yelling truth into the microphone.” Though the book chronicles disasters—pandemic, climate change, gun violence, threats to democracy— beauty abounds: “nail polish. . . the exact iridescence of abalone and new pennies,” jasmine that gives off “the white-hot honey of distant stars.” In The Time of Great Fires achieves a wise and welcome balance, like “a candle that doesn’t conquer the dark but cracks it just a peep, at the seams."
—Ellen Bass
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About Alison Luterman
Alison Luterman is a poet, essayist and playwright. Her books include the poetry collections In the Time of Great Fires (Catamaran Press), Desire Zoo (Tia Chucha Press), The Largest Possible Life (Cleveland State University Press) See How We Almost Fly (Pearl Editions), and a collection of essays, Feral City (SheBooks). Luterman's plays include Saying Kaddish With My Sister, Hot Water, Glitter and Spew, Oasis, Touched, and the musicals, The Chain (with composer Loren Linnard), The Shyest Witch (with composer Richard Jennings, and song cycle We Are Not Afraid of the Dark (with composer Sheela Ramesh).