Maker, Mentor, Muse is a teaching platform founded in 2022 by Mary Volmer, Maw Shein Win, and Dawn Angelicca Barcelona. Hailing from three distinct backgrounds, generations, and spiritual traditions we believe community is essential to building a satisfying and sustainable literary life and that true success requires balancing all three artistic roles: maker, mentor, muse. In collaboration with Alta Mesa Center for the Arts, sponsored by Orinda Community Church, we are building a place where artists embrace practices that honor process, spiritual growth, connection, and ongoing community with other writers.
Past Events
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Virtual Book Launch: Percussing the Thinking Jar by Maw Shein Win
November 24th, 2024
Join Maw Shein Win and Maker, Mentor, Muse for an online celebration of her new full-length poetry collection, Percussing the Thinking Jar (Omnidawn). She is delighted to be reading with some of her favorite poets and writers, Rae Diamond, Thea Matthews, Candy Shue, and Jenny Qi.
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October Reading Series: Jim Wilson, author of Tuned In: Memoirs of a Piano Man
October 27th, 2024
Mary Volmer & Jim Wilson in conversation about Jim’s new book, Tuned-In: Memoirs of a Piano Man tells the story of Jim Wilson’s life in music.
Presented in partnership with Alta Mesa Center for the Arts.
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September Writing Salon: Moving Words, Speaking Gestures
September 15th, 2024
How might poets work with words as kinetic objects, and with movement as language? Poets Valerie Witte, Petra Kuppers, and Sarah Rosenthal will read from their recent poetry collections A Rupture in the Interiors (Airlie, 2023), Diver Beneath the Street (Wayne State U., 2024), and Estelle Meaning Star (Chax, 2024), all of which address embodiment in formally innovative ways. Petra and Sarah will screen short films that activate poetic language through gestures.
Maker, Mentor, Muse Video Archive
If you weren’t able to make it to one of our events live, you can still join the community through our recordings!