Outrun the Void: Generative Workshop in the Video Poem and the Video Essay
A blank page holds so much possibility, but what if you could begin somewhere else?
Video is playing everywhere, but writers rarely talk about the moving image as a potential prompt, a reliable scaffold, a borrowed cadence to jump-start a draft. And what if that essay you’re stuck on is actually a video essay? What could the landscape of a video editing program reveal about your line breaks?
This course will offer an introduction to the short-form video essay and video poem, offering students three paths for writing to, alongside, or in anticipation of the moving image. The course will end with a workshop where each writer will present and discuss one new work.
This course is open to beginners who have zero experience with video or film editing as well as to writers and makers who have existing image-based practices.
Participants should expect:
· An introduction to the video poem and video essay as literary forms
· Participation in group screenings and discussions of video poems and video essays
· Four generative creative writing prompts
· Guided access to free tools and open-sourced materials
· A thoughtful, mini workshop of one new work in progress
The course will take place from 6:00 - 7:30 pm EST / 5:00 - 6:30 pm CST over Zoom.
● Wednesday, September 30th – Session 1 [first session]
● Wednesday, October 7th – Session 2
● Wednesday, Octoberay 14th – Session 3
● Wednesday, October 21st – Session 4 [final session]
Cost: $250 per registrant, nonrefundable. Please note the class capacity will be capped at 20 participants.
Sarah Minor
Online Video Essay Class Instructor October 2026 || she/her
Dr. Sarah Minor is a writer and interdisciplinary artist and the author of three books: Carousel: An Essay on Seeing (Yale University Press), Slim Confessions: The Universe as a Spider or Spit (Noemi Press) and the award-winning collection Bright Archive (Rescue Press), along with the digital chapbook The Persistence of the Bonyleg: Annotated (Essay Press 2016). Minor is the recipient of the Barthelme Prize for Short Prose, an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and an Individual Research Grant to Iceland from the American-Scandinavian Foundation. Minor’s essays and visual poems have been collected in places like Best American Experimental Writing, Malleable and True and A Harp in the Stars. She teaches in the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Master of Fine Arts program and serves as the Video Essay Editor at Brink Literary Magazine. In addition to her writing practice, Sarah is one half of the collaborative duo Haag Cykell—an ongoing performance series with the artist Johanna Winters that explores modes of storytelling through shadow theater and language.
Explore Sarah Minor's work in Brink Issue No. 3 || CURRENCY
Engage, Generate, Reflect:
Hybrid Writing
in the Classroom
This generative one-hour session is intended for high school or college teachers looking for an innovative way to incorporate creative writing, specifically hybrid and multi-genre writing, into their classrooms.
Participants will receive sample lesson plans and generative assignments using Brink’s Malleable & True: A Hybrid Craft Anthology as a blueprint, spend time generating ideas for their own respective classes, and ask questions of writer and educator Lauren Childs and Brink Books’ Editor-in-Chief Alisha Jeddeloh.
The course will take place from Monday, July 20th, 3:00 -4:00 pm EST over Zoom.
Cost: $60 (cost for class includes a copy of Malleable & True: A Hybrid Craft Anthology)
*Please note the class is nonrefundable
Engage, Generate, Reflect: Hybrid Writing in the Classroom
Engage, Generate, Reflect: Hybrid Writing in the Classroom
Laruen Childs
Hybrid Writing Class Instructor July 2026 || she/her
Lauren is a writer and educator from Hawaiʻi. Her work has appeared in Litro Magazine, Bamboo Ridge: Journal of Hawaiʻi Literature and Arts, Entropy Magazine, and elsewhere. She earned a degree in Method Acting from The Lee Strasberg and Theatre & Film Institute in New York City and is a member of the Screen Actors Guild. Lauren is an MFA candidate in The Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa and was the Englert Theatre’s 2025 Nonfiction Writing Fellow.
Alisha Jeddeloh
Hybrid Writing Class Instructor July 2026 || she/her
Alisha Jeddeloh is a writer and editor based in Iowa City. As a writer, she explores community, belonging, and the fault lines in the stories we tell each other and ourselves. As an editor, she enjoys being surprised by characters and prose.
Previous Online Classes
Magical Intention in Poetry
Some people believe that a poem comes from some magical place, the unconscious, the muse, the ether. Other people believe that a poem comes from the writer’s intention, and others still fall somewhere in between. In this course, we'll explore both the mysterious magical place where poetry might come from and learn about craft—the writer’s intention (sometimes through the subconscious). We’ll focus on craft and technique (the line, image, syntax, revision, and more), with an emphasis on language and the possibilities of language, so we'll be ready for magic when it arrives. Students will be pushed beyond your comfort zones—to experiment and try new things, and will leave the course with new poems, new inspirations, and seeds for new future poems.
Victoria Chang
Online Poetry Class Instructor May 2026 || she/her
Victoria Chang’s (she/her) most recent book of poems, With My Back to the World was published in 2024 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and Corsair Books in the U.K., and received the Forward Prize for Best Collection of Poetry, was named a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the PEN Jean/Stein Award, and was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Guardian, Lithub, and Electric Literature. Her most recent book of poetry, The Trees Witness Everything was published by Copper Canyon Press and Corsair Books in the U.K. in 2022, and was named one of the Best Books of 2022 by The New Yorker and The Guardian.
Her nonfiction book, Dear Memory (Milkweed Editions), was published in 2021 and was named a favorite nonfiction book of 2021 by Electric Literature and Kirkus. OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), her book of poems, was named a New York Times Notable Book, a Time Must-Read Book, and received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. It was also longlisted for a National Book Award and named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. She has written several children’s books as well and Eureka is forthcoming from FSG Books for Young Readers in 2026. She has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Chowdhury Prize in Literature. She serves as the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and as the Director of Poetry@Tech. Her poems have been translated into many languages including Italian, Chinese, Hebrew, Korean, Spanish, Romanian, German, Latvian, Greek, and Dutch.
Explore Victoria Chang's work in Brink Issue No. 10 || RENEWAL
Where do we begin?
As lovers of poetry, we know hooks or the beginning line of our favorite poems pull us in, unearth our human connection, ground us in the author’s world outside of our singularity. From Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me,” to William Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”, hooks are often what we return back to after the poem is unleashed—similar to our favorite hooks in a song. Especially in a time where attention spans are frantic in an oversaturated social media world, tending to how we hone and articulate our worldview from the beginning can help us strengthen our poetic voice.
Golden
Online Poetry Class Instructor February 2026 || they/them
Golden (they/them) is a poet, multidisciplinary artist, & educator raised in Hampton, VA (Kikotan land). They are the author of A Dead Name That Learned How to Live (Game Over Books 2022), a Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Transgender Poetry (Game Over Books 2023), and Reprise (Haymarket Books 2025). Golden is the recipient of a Pink Door Fellowship (2017/2019), the Frontier Award for New Poets (2019), a Best of the Net Award (2020), a City of Boston Artist- in-Residence (2020-2021), a MacDowell Fellowship (2025), and a Blackburn ‘71 Fellowship (2025). They have taught workshops and classes at Wellesley College, ICA Boston, New York University, GrubStreet, the Philly Pigeon, and Concord Academy.
Their published and collaborative work can be found on/in The Yale Review, The Nation, Poetry Magazine, In These Times, The Boston Globe, Vogue, Muzzle Magazine, Split this Rock, Button Poetry, Best of the Net Anthology, Instagram (@goldenthem_), or through their website goldengoldengolden.com. Golden holds a BFA in Photography & Imaging from New York University and is currently a MFA Creative Writing candidate at Randolph College.
Explore Golden's work in Brink Issue No. 2 || TROUBLE