Have you ever viewed yourself as a poet? Or are you a would-be poet if only you had more time, or you had a teacher, or you wouldn’t embarrass family and friends because of your ideas? Spend an hour at Edison State Community College’s Piqua Campus in East Hall, Room 406, at 3 p.m. on October 27, 2022, and learn from retired English professor Jane K. Kretschmann.
Kretschmann says of herself, “When I took the two creative writing classes at Edison State, a world of opportunities for creating poetry opened up before me. I became a member of the writing club, was featured in the Celebration of Writers in 2004, contributed to the Poetry/Art Exhibit, had a poem published in Departure in 2010, participated in a poetry reading, and taught a creative writers’ workshop. This led to an article I wrote for Writer’s Digest being published, and I made many wonderful writing friends. These friends joined me in looking further afield for more opportunities. I have grown from being a new poet and am now an emerging published author.”
Kretschmann’s work has appeared online and in print and has been broadcast on radio. Her chapbook, Imagining a Life, was published by Foothills Publishing, and her poems have recently appeared in Gyroscope Review, Mock Turtle Zine, NFSPS Encore 2022, and OPA Best of 2022. Her readers theatre script, Lynching Alabama, premiered in February 2022 at Edison State, and she was one of the featured poets at this year’s A Mosaic of Voices at the Hayner Cultural Center in Troy.
At the seminar, which is open to community members and Edison State students and is being sponsored by the Edison State Creative Writing Club, Kretschmann will be discussing poems from her series, The Epistles of Lydia of Thyatira, based on Acts 16 from the King James Version of the Bible. She brings Lydia into 2022 by posing some questions to her. Learn the ways in which sacred texts, classical works, and cultural myths can be explored to meet the needs of 21st Century readers.
Questions? Email Creative Writing Club president August Evans at aevans7@edisonohio.edu or club advisor Dr. Vivian Blevins at vblevins@edisonohio.edu.