solar year

An orbit for your book, culminating in a celebratory reading

  • WINTER = VISION & FLOW > water

  • SPRING = PROCESS > air

  • SUMMER = PRODUCTION > fire

  • FALL = CRAFTING & TUNING > earth

This is not a workshop, it’s a generative, communal force.

Using the framework of the SOLAR YEAR, our creative orbit starts with the flow of water energy near the winter solstice. We’ll meet every four weeks (13 sessions total) to support the collective progress (and, if desired, completion) of your book-length project. All media & genres welcome. We’ll primarily be referring to poetry texts, but our past cohorts included poets, essayists, fiction-writers, journalists, photographers, sci-fi writers, scholars, and memoirists.

Tuesdays, 10-11:45am*/EST 
January 6 - December 9, 2026
13 meetings, across one solar year

$575-975 sliding scale

*final session on December 9 is from 7-9pm

  • > WINTER = VISION & FLOW > water
    Jan 6, Feb 3, Mar 3, Mar 31

    > SPRING = PROCESS > air
    Apr 28, May 26, Jun 23

    > SUMMER = PRODUCTION > fire
    Jul 21, Aug 18, Sep 15

    > FALL = CRAFTING & TUNING > earth
    Oct 13, Nov 10, Dec 8

    We’ll focus on generative rituals and habits, consideration of craft & structure, and, most importantly, supportive community and gentle accountability. This space is designed to nurture your projects, collectively and individually.

    You’ll be encouraged to periodically share excerpts of your work, and to discuss, in some depth, your process. But you will not be critiquing each other’s full projects. If group members would like to swap on the side, that is, of course, welcome and space is created for it, but not an expectation.

  • suggested exchange:

    $575=pressured resources
    $775=balanced resources
    $975=abundant resources

    payment plans available

    payments of $975 will receive a one-hour 1-1 writing consultation & a year-long subscription to Open Language (substack newsletter, with special subscriber-only benefits) 

    If SOLAR YEAR sounds like what you need and you want to join but can’t pay in full, or at all, please include a message when you register, and I will be in touch about available scholarships.

  • Some writers benefit from additional supportive structures! The following are included for any registered writers who wants to participate, but are not required for all:

    • weekly “rotations”: hour-long unstructured writing times on Zoom, for communal independent writing (day/time dependent on group vote and emily’s availability)

    • optional monthly triad/quad groups to exchange progress and converse with between meetings, February-July

    • optional partner swaps of manuscripts (in any state of completion) for focused feedback in Fall

register for solar year

hear what others love about solar year

  • “The workshop has been an essential watering hole in my journey of turning a tiny handful of poems into a draft of a book!”

  • “I can't believe it, but over the year my poetry project (previously 23 random word documents) has solidified into something that looks like a poetry manuscript. SOLAR YEAR has helped me confront my hesitations about writing about these topics, then use them to get deeper into the themes rather than running away like I was initially (and often) tempted to do. That is the most precious to me — the sense that I've experienced and hopefully internalized a new method of writing and working on my craft. One that is questioning and exploring and pleasurable and courageous.”

  • “Solar year lit something up in me. Emily creates a space that feels alive, safe, and real—and that’s rare. Each session left me feeling more connected to myself and my voice, like I could actually trust what was coming through. The prompts were simple but powerful, and the rhythm of the workshop had this beautiful balance of ease and depth. What surprised me most was how much it shifted my relationship with a project I’ve been dragging for almost 10 years. For the first time in ages, I feel genuinely committed—not from pressure, but from a renewed sense of desire. It feels possible now. Alive again.”

  • “I committed to the novel I'd been running away from.”

  • “I've written more poetry, and taken more photography for my project as well as feel a continued openness to creation that I wasn't feeling before. I am finding the prompts in class and meditations to be super helpful. They get me flowing and give me good jumping off places for my work on my own. I find the accountability of a group to be huge for me. I need it!”

  • “SOLAR YEAR has been really helpful in removing the ways I was getting in my own way for my project. I have been so impressed with the combination of somatic, generative and creative offerings and the ways they've helped open me to further possibilities within my work.”

  • “I love that we start with tuning in to our bodies and our environments. It sets a grounded tone. The exercises helped me to articulate my vision for my book. The readings inspire me to follow new avenues of research and expand my thinking on how to structure this and future collections. I have started new sections/poems that fill in gaps that I didn’t know were there.”

  • “I am so impressed with the structure of the whole workshop and I love the long arc of it!”

  • “The whole group is wonderful and wise.”

  • “Through deepening relations with everyone in workshop and receiving feedback on my project, I have added so much depth and meaning to my life and creative work. The somatic exercises helped me understand myself and my own needs, and therefore assisted me in imagining the full scope of my project, what it is, and what it can do. I have added many pieces to the final project and feel a lot closer to completion than I did a year ago.”

  • “It helped me formulate ideas through the exercises and somatic practices, think about form and structure in a new way and keep myself accountable! I am forever grateful for this warm, welcoming community which also pushed me deeper into my writing practice.”

  • “I’ve sought writing workshops for decades, but this one was truly generative, collective and mind-opening. It was unlike anything else I’ve been offered.”