sparks to illuminate the poet’s path

Winter 2025-2026

Early Bird registration IS OPEN. 

"Soon the nights will lengthen,
you will lean into the year
humming like a saw.
You will fill the lamps with kerosene,
knowing somewhere a line breaks,
a city goes black,
people dig for candles in the bottom drawer.
You will be ready. You will use the song like a match."—Naomi Shihab Nye

Many Lanterns is a winter writing program offering brief, illuminating lessons to spark new poems and sustain your creative fire. With examples, craft pointers, and gentle guidance, it nurtures both your work and your poet’s heart—helping you gather a constellation of new drafts to brighten the long nights.

This experience has been distilled to contain the essential elements of a consistent and inspiring creative writing practice, offering poets and secret poets:

~21+ brief and approachable ways to begin a new poem—you'll leave the course just as many new drafts

~21+ examples of what's possible in poetry (our carefully curated readings will make you want to write, write, write!)

~Craft pointers and helpful techniques to support your work in progress, so that you stay with your new pieces of writing, rather than putting them aside and forgetting about them

~For your convenience, all 21 lessons are voice guided by Holly and included handouts that you can print and take with you. 

Does it help to have someone by your side to ensure you stay lit? Do you long to connect to that source of heat within yourself?

Many Lanterns is gentle, encouraging, and intended to strengthen your writing, as well as your poet's heart.

Whether you complete the sequence within a span of weeks, or stretch it over several months, it's here to keep your poetry lamp from going dark.    

Your lantern bearer is Holly Wren Spaulding. Her method is trustworthy and transformative. 

Join us during the season of long nights. We will walk through the darkness together. 

Early Bird Price: $495

After October 31: $545

*get in touch if you need a payment plan 

Many Lanterns begins with a live community workshop on Zoom, December 1 at 7 pm Eastern (it will be recorded, too). The rest of the experience may be enjoyed at your own pace, asynchronously. 

FAQ

Holly Wren Spaulding is an award winning writer, teaching artist, and the founder of Poetry Forge, where she offers creative writing workshops, retreats, and a manuscript incubator. She is a graduate of the creative writing program at Interlochen Arts Academy and holds advanced degrees from the University of Michigan and Trinity College Dublin. In addition to running her own school, Holly is an instructor at Interlochen College of Creative Arts and Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. Recent publications include Familiars (Alice Greene & Co., 2020), Fire (St. Brigid Press, 2021), and Between Us (Alice Greene & Co., 2022). Spaulding's poems, essays, reviews and articles have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Witness, Poetry Northwest, New York Times, and in numerous anthologies, including The Poetry of Presence and The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal. She lives and writes on the southern seacoast of Maine.