Unlocking Knowledge, Inspiring Growth
Rooted in Fahmidan’s desire to spread knowledge and literary excellence, Fahmidan Education is dedicated to fostering curiosity, critical thinking, and lifelong learning. Fahmidan Education strives to further understanding and the pursuit of knowledge across cultures and societies, we design and deliver high-impact educational workshops that empower learners of all ages.
Our workshops blend innovative teaching methodologies with engaging, hands-on experiences, ensuring that participants don’t just learn but truly understand. Fahmidan Education desires to transform one’s learning experience into an immersive journey, equipping individuals with the skills and knowledge to thrive in an ever-evolving world.
At Fahmidan Education, we believe that learning should be more than memorization—it should be a gateway to deeper insight, creativity, and personal growth. Fahmidan, meaning "to understand" in Farsi, reflects our commitment to true comprehension and intellectual exploration. Currently specializing in literary workshops, we create spaces where participants can engage deeply with texts, storytelling, and critical analysis. Join us in the pursuit of understanding, and let’s redefine literary education together.
Kenna DeValor: Nostalgia is a powerful aspect in poetry, shaping the way we remember, reflect, and reimagine the past. We may even at times romanticize the life that we once lived. In this interactive virtual workshop, we’ll explore how memory, longing, and personal history can become a catalyst for creative expression. Together, we’ll write pieces that stretch across time and capture the sensory feelings of memory through imagery, tone, and form (along with some recommendations of poems that really showcase these themes) and use their work as inspiration for our own writing as we go throughout our exercises. Partnering with Kenna DeValor-- award winning poet, published author, and the founder and editor-in-chief of FlowerMouth Press-- Kenna and workshop participants will explore nostalgia as they create new work using a variety of prompts, and guided exercises. The workshop will conclude with an optional sharing of poems, giving space for those who feel comfortable to read aloud and create space for their words within a supportive and laid back community. This workshop is open to writers of all levels! Whether you’re beginning your journey with poetry or seeking enrichment in your poetry chops. We'd love to have you!
CD Eskilson: This workshop will consider how poets might present different notions of home through their work: from the houses that call back to us to the loved ones whom our hearts reside with. How do we render the emotional landscape of places that shelter us, and how do we imagine future ones where we might thrive? Furthermore, what language lives in our homes, and what tensions might hang between those words? During our time together, we will discuss and write about the complexities surrounding our ideas of accessing home, touching on the impacts of diaspora, ecological degradation, and exile. We will read work by Victoriano Cárdenas, Brody Parrish Craig, K. Iver, and KB Brookins, paying close attention to craft elements such as description, metaphor, and poetic tension.
Nandita Dinesh: Explore the power of place-inspired storytelling. Meet people from diverse contexts & get a glimpse into their worlds. Learn how creative writing can unlock personal and cultural memory through an engagement with space. This workshop will take you from your screen and into the places around you. Whether you’re an aspiring author, a student of experimental literature, or a global citizen who is committed to learning from/about the world, this gathering is for you.
Kristin Entler: We often think of absence and loss as a void, a leftover space where something once was. Negative Space is defined in the visual arts as the empty or unoccupied space around or between the main subjects of a piece. But even an empty space is full of stuff: air, dust particles, light. And, what we think of as empty spaces inevitably become filled—whether by grief or memories or some stand-in replacement. In this workshop, we’ll investigate what it means for the idea of absence itself to be a tangible thing, and what insights the absence provides about a poem’s speaker. We’ll read and unpack a range of poems that use negative space, both as a concept as well as in their craft and formal moves, by Raymond Antrobus, Kayleb Rae Candrilli, Aracelis Girmay, and more. Whether it’s a torn passenger’s seat, a dustless spot on the mantle, or a new love—we’ll also begin our own drafts about what fills the leftover spaces around us. Attendees will leave the workshop with the beginnings of at least one poem draft and a handful of prompts and examples for inspiration.
Joanna Acevado: Culture Clash Changes Craft: Poetry and Diaspora This course will examine examples of contemporary poetry by poets from all over the world, focusing on writers working in English as their non-native language, poets writing in translation, and poets who use un-translated words or phrases in their English-language poetry, with focus on poets of color and poets of mixed heritage, as well as refugee poets, stateless poets, and poets seeking asylum. Comparing the stories and histories of modern diasporic poets to mainstream narratives of immigration and migration patterns globally, the workshop hopes to illuminate the fascinating ways that language and culture intersect when cultures are suddenly in contact with each other, while also bringing attention to the narratives that remain dominant and the work that contemporary voices are doing to break Western stereotyping and tell their own stories the way they want to tell them. Generative exercises regarding ones own feelings of othering (not restricted to culture/race/ethnicity) will allow students to dig a little deeper into the urgency of narrative and the power of storytelling as a poetic mode of communication.
A.R.Arthur: The Chapbook Editing & Publishing Process: Producing a Chapbook is a rite of passage for any writer and is often a considerably challenging feat that takes time, dedication and re-writes. But how does this work? What decisions impact Press Selection and how are Chapbooks crafted and formatted? In this workshop, we will walk you through the formatting, submitting and publication process from start to finish. The core goal of this workshop is to provide you with the tools, tips, tricks and knowledge to collate, format, submit and publish your very own Chapbook collection. For the final 20 minutes of this session, questions will be taken to answer all your Chapbook questions and help guide you to press opportunities. All genres of writers and levels of experience are welcome.
&
The Submission & Editorial Process: Understanding the Literary World: The literary world is active in almost every way from political discourse to children’s books and multilingual inclusion. But how can you get your work submitted and published? How can you be an active member of the literary community? What decisions impact journal/magazine selection? In this workshop, we will walk you through the publication process from start to finish with an emphasis on literary journal/magazine publication. The core goal of this workshop is to teach you about the ways in which submissions are considered and how the submission process works alongside key areas of importance such as formatting and unspoken/spoken rules of submitting. For the final 15 minutes there will be a Q/A to answer all your submission and editorial questions and help guide you to a home for your work.