DC Oral History Collaborative: Oral History 101+ Workshop

Learn how to record oral history interviews with your family, friends, and community.

This course will introduce Washingtonians interested in becoming oral historians to the best practices of doing oral history, to empower them with the basic tools for developing their style and approach to preserving DC’s rich past through oral history interviews.

This course is structured to follow the full cycle of an oral history interview, from conception to processing. We will discuss practical and theoretical considerations of doing oral history in order to demonstrate the distinctive, interdisciplinary mindset that oral historians take to their work. Because oral history is best learned “on the job,” the instructor will ask you to do activities and to discuss your experiences along the way.

There is a lot of material to cover, so participants will also be asked to do some reading and exercises prior to each session.

This workshop consists of three sessions – registrants must commit to participating in all three sessions.

Register here

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March 19, 23, 26

6:00pm-8:00pm

Martin Luther King, Jr. – 4th Floor Conference Room Space – 401-C

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The DC Oral History Collaborative (DCOHC) documents, preserves, and celebrates the lived experiences of all Washington, DC residents and communities through oral history. The Collaborative accomplishes this by providing training, mentorship, resources, programs, and funding to current and aspiring oral historians.

DC Oral History Workshop: Planning Oral History Projects

How do you invite interviewees? How do you keep things on track? What does it cost?

Running an oral history project is a lot of work! But the skills and best practices in this core workshop in the DC Oral History Collaborative’s Training Series will help participants understand how to avoid getting bogged down in budgetary or scheduling challenges.

This session covers topics such as developing an organizing research question and overcoming common pitfalls and obstacles. Anxious about approaching potential interviewees, join us at this session for some practice!

Register here.

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The DC Oral History Collaborative (DCOHC) documents, preserves, and celebrates the lived experiences of all Washington, DC residents and communities through oral history. The Collaborative accomplishes this by providing training, mentorship, resources, programs, and funding to current and aspiring oral historians. The Collaborative is a partnership of HumanitiesDC and the DC Public Library

Writing and Wellness Workshop: Love Letter to You!

Attend a Free Writing Workshop to Wake up your inner wisdom and Reflect on the many ways to LOVE YOU!

Workshop includes: SOAR’s Poetry Training Wheels, Interactive writing prompts and a FREE book for the first 5 people who Register and attend the workshop.

Kindly RSVP by emailing your name at goldenfernpress [at] gmail [dot] com by February 16.

Learn more

Pride Month Poetry Reading

2026 PRIDE POETRY WORKSHOPS AT THE ARTS CLUB

The Arts Club of Washington announces a slate of free community writing workshops for 2026, led by five Pride Poets-in-Residence. Workshops are designed to be generative, so participants will leave each session with a new poem-in-progress, and are open to writers of all levels of experience and backgrounds. This is the final of six sessions.

 

Pride Month Poetry Reading

Reading by Gregory Adams, Xochi Quetzali Cartland, Marlena Chertock, Angelique Palmer, and Nico Penaranda, the five LGBTQ+ poets awarded 2026 Pride Poetry Fellowships from the Arts Club of Washington. Followed by a reception and book signing.

Register here.

Pride Poetry Workshop: Resistance – LGBTQ Poetry as an Act of Defiance

2026 PRIDE POETRY WORKSHOPS AT THE ARTS CLUB

The Arts Club of Washington announces a slate of free community writing workshops for 2026, led by five Pride Poets-in-Residence. Workshops are designed to be generative, so participants will leave each session with a new poem-in-progress, and are open to writers of all levels of experience and backgrounds.

 

Pride Poetry Workshop: Resistance – LGBTQ Poetry as an Act of Defiance

In this workshop, participants will consider the forms that resistance to the heteronormative status quo—and the limits of their own thinking—can take. We will look at poems that not only assert a queer life, but also challenge those who view that life as “less than.” Led by Gregory Adams.

Gregory Adams is a founding member of Station-to-Station, a groundbreaking collective of Black LGBTQ performance poets and writers of the 1980s, and part of the creative team who produced the documentary Fierceness Served!: The ENIK Alley Coffeehouse (2021).

Register here.

Pride Poetry Workshop: Wronged Women – Hell Hath No Fury

2026 PRIDE POETRY WORKSHOPS AT THE ARTS CLUB

The Arts Club of Washington announces a slate of free community writing workshops for 2026, led by five Pride Poets-in-Residence. Workshops are designed to be generative, so participants will leave each session with a new poem-in-progress, and are open to writers of all levels of experience and backgrounds.

 

Pride Poetry Workshop: Wronged Women – Hell Hath No Fury

In Postcolonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz said “Trust your anger. It is a demand for love.” For women who are socialized to be forever accommodating, how can anger be a liberatory force? In this poetry workshop, participants will be invited to engage with female figures such as Eve, Lot’s Wife, Selena Quintanilla, Yolanda Saldívar, and Harley Quinn, giving these infamous women the dignity of context. Led by Xochi Quetzali Cartland.

Xochi Quetzali Cartland is a queer Chicana poet and seamstress who was the 2025 Latinx in Publishing poetry mentee, and has been supported with fellowships from National Arts Strategies and Brooklyn Poets.

Register here.

Pride Poetry Workshop: Queer Homage

2026 PRIDE POETRY WORKSHOPS AT THE ARTS CLUB

The Arts Club of Washington announces a slate of free community writing workshops for 2026, led by five Pride Poets-in-Residence. Workshops are designed to be generative, so participants will leave each session with a new poem-in-progress, and are open to writers of all levels of experience and backgrounds.

 

Pride Poetry Workshop: Queer Homage

In this workshop, we will create poems in conversation with, or in the style of, or in response to another poem, or piece of art, or song. “After poems” are a powerful form of connection across mediums and artists—they can generate dialogue, honor, subvert, or reclaim. Led by Marlena Chertock,

Marlena Chertock is a disabled, lesbian, Jewish poet with two books of poems, who uses her skeletal dysplasia as a bridge to scientific poetry.

Register here.

Pride Poetry Workshop: Erasure Poems

2026 PRIDE POETRY WORKSHOPS AT THE ARTS CLUB

The Arts Club of Washington announces a slate of free community writing workshops for 2026, led by five Pride Poets-in-Residence. Workshops are designed to be generative, so participants will leave each session with a new poem-in-progress, and are open to writers of all levels of experience and backgrounds.

 

Pride Poetry Workshop: Erasure Poems

Working with pre-existing material, we will black out, erase, or otherwise obscure to form new meaning. How do we as queer people create new meanings and identities from the ones we are given? Where did we clash or not fit in? And what do we do when the world seemingly wants to erase us? Led by Nico Penaranda.

Nico Penaranda is a teacher in Howard University’s first-year writing program, who has been a featured reader at recent events hosted by the DC Poet Project, the Smithsonian Asian Art Museum, and the DC Public Library.

Register here.

Pride Poetry Workshop: “Weird Way to Protest…but, Yes!”

2026 PRIDE POETRY WORKSHOPS AT THE ARTS CLUB

The Arts Club of Washington announces a slate of free community writing workshops for 2026, led by five Pride Poets-in-Residence. Workshops are designed to be generative, so participants will leave each session with a new poem-in-progress, and are open to writers of all levels of experience and backgrounds.

 

Pride Poetry Workshop: “Weird Way to Protest…but, Yes!”

Using popular protest signs and memes as prompts, participants create short poems in three veins: love, abstract, and erotica. This approach highlights the accessibility of inspiration, examines protest poems from new and imaginative angles, and boldly stands in queerness in a world that wants to pretend us away. Led by Angelique Palmer.

Angelique Palmer is a performance poet, kindergarten teacher, and spoken word instructor at Wilkes University, author of two books of poems, who is in her second year of a three-year tenure as Fairfax County Poet Laureate.

Register here.

Oral History Interviewing Grant Workshop

Join for an in-depth look at the Oral History Interviewing grant application and program requirements

This session will provide a detailed look at the Oral History Interviewing grant requirements, eligibility information, and application questions. Attendees will also get to hear from a current Oral History Interviewing grantee who will share insights into their project, the training they received from the DC Oral History Collaborative, as well as their successful grant application process.

Register to receive the Zoom link!