Learn how to move readers with the details.
In this course, with Houston’s Poet Laureate Emeritus, you will practice honing in your ability to heighten your voice by curating new details. Whether poem or short story, the Devil is in the details. Learn how to write more engaging and emotional narratives and more moment capturing poems, all by focusing on the smallest things.
- You’re writing fiction, poetry, or memoir.
- You want to refresh old work with a new lens.
- You want to inject your work with details that mean something.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton is an internationally known writer, educator, activist, and Poet Laureate Emeritus of Houston, Texas. Formerly ranked the #2 Best Female Poet in the World, Her work has appeared in Houston Noir by Akashic Press (2019), Black Girl Magic by Haymarket Books (2019), Fjords Journal, Crab Orchard Review, and on such platforms as NPR, BBC, ABC, Apple News, Blavity, Upworthy, and across the TedX circuit. She serves as a contributing writer to Texas Monthly and Glamour. Her most recent poetry collection, Newsworthy, won honorable mention for the Summerlee Book Prize. A German translation, under the title “Berichtenswert,” is set to be released in Fall 2021 by Elif Verlag.
A fellow with The Writer’s Hotel and The Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Incubator, D.E.E.P.’s collaborations with The Houston Ballet, The Houston Rockets, and the Houston Grand Opera have opened new doors for performance poetry. The opera, Marian’s Song, for which she wrote the libretto debuted in 2020 to roaring reviews. As a finalist for Texas State Poet Laureate, a Kennedy Center Citizen fellowship, and the prestigious Breadloaf Retreat, her work has been highlighted and studied in Canada, England, New Zealand, and Germany. She had the pleasure of performing and leading a workshop at the Leipzig in Autumn literary festival in 2018, where she bridged the gap between the poetry slam and international publishing communities.
D.E.E.P. holds two Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor, in English and African American Studies respectively. She also holds a M.Ed from the University of ST. Thomas. She is a certified teacher with the State of Texas and has dedicated over 15 years towards the education of young minds, the expansion of literacy, and the dismantling of literary racism.
