The Joys of Not Knowing:
A Memoir Workshop
Writing Workshop in New Jersey
January 15-18, 2027
Led by Catherine Pierce
One of writing’s deepest delights is how it offers us a space for questions. What do we wonder? What are we trying to better understand? Where might our curiosity lead us if we give it free rein? In this workshop, we’ll read excerpts and short essays by writers including Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Beth Ann Fennelly, Ross Gay, Rivka Galchen, Maggie Smith and others, who invite questions and wonder into not only their lives, but their writing processes and their work. We’ll use generative prompts to jumpstart new pieces and we’ll spend time writing and thinking in community. We’ll share our writing, offer thoughtful feedback in a warm, supportive environment, and discover where our own questions can lead our work. All experience levels welcome!
*Limited to just 10 participants.*
“The workshop was an extremely supportive environment that yielded a lot of awesome writing for me. I loved the personality of everyone in the group and how welcoming and attentive everyone was to each other’s creative ideas.”
~ Chris, Brick, NJ
Catherine Pierce
Catherine Pierce is the author of the memoir-in-essays Foxes for Everybody: Twenty-Four Hours of Early Motherhood (Northwestern University Press, 2026), as well as of five books of poems, including Dear Beast (Saturnalia, 2026). Her essays and poems have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. From 2007-2024, she was professor of English and co-director of the creative writing program at Mississippi State University. She recently moved with her family to her home state of Delaware and founded Studio & Craft, an online poetry community through which she teaches workshops and offers manuscript consultations. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Academy of American Poets, Catherine served as Poet Laureate of Mississippi from 2021 to 2025.
