PSNY Free Verse Workshop for Immigrant Writers: Overcoming, Softly

A free generative virtual workshop for immigrant writers with poet Wangeci Gitau!

Inspired by "Self Portrait With No Flag" by Safia Elhillo and my new poetry collection "Coka Mũciĩ," meaning "return home" in my native Gikũyũ, this community writing workshop uses poetry and sentimental photographs to explore migration, memory, language, and belonging. Participants will read selected excerpts, reflect on the personal stories held within family or meaningful images, and respond through guided free-writing prompts centered on home, identity, and return. Designed for writers of all levels, the workshop creates space for honest storytelling, shared reflection, and creative experimentation, ending with an optional community sharing session and resource exchange.

About the instructor: Wangeci Gitau (she/they) is a Gikũyũ writer and artist born in Kenya and residing in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She is the author of poetry collections: there's the truth and there’s other things (2019) and I'm not allowed to explain (only foreshadow and reminisce) (2021) and Coka Mũciĩ (2026) which explore themes of memory, migration, and identity.

Her writing has been featured in Here to Stay (HarperCollins 2024), the Bread Loaf School of English Journal, and on stages across the country, including UC Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender, the Huntington Theatre, and WGBH’s Stories from the Stage. Wangeci is the co-founder and co-editor of Exposed Brick Literary Magazine and she is also a Gikuyu culture maker whose multidisciplinary work, spanning poetry, archival research, storytelling, visual art, and performance, is rooted in land, liberation, and ancestral knowledge.

PSNY's Free Verse Workshops are identity-centered, free virtual spaces designed to uplift marginalized creatives. To create a system of equity within our community, participants of all Free Verse Workshops receive a 50% discount code, redeemable on any of our Weekly Virtual Workshops, each Thursday from 7:00 PM - 8:15 PM EST. For more on the program, feel free to visit https://poetrysocietyny.org/free-verse.

If you are not an immigrant writer, we warmly invite you to explore other PSNY events.