Sarah Wolfson
Workshops, Mentorship,
Manuscript Critique & Editing
In addition to her work as a poet, Sarah is a celebrated teaching artist. As an educator, she has received teaching excellence awards from both McGill University, where she works as a lecturer, and the University of Michigan, where she earned an MFA in creative writing.
She leads courses and workshops for a variety of audiences. She is also available for the following services:
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coaching and mentorship;
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manuscript critique; and
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feedback on distinct works (e.g. packets of poems, individual essays, academic papers).
Sarah works with poets and writers of all backgrounds, experience levels, and aesthetics. As a mentor, she brings equal respect to all schools and styles of poetry. She also has experience supporting academic writers, plurilingual writers, memoirists, and essayists. Across contexts, her mentorship style emphasizes curiosity, agency, cultural sensitivity, and deep attention to the idiosyncratic emerging voice.
If you are interested in working with Sarah, or would like to be notified of future workshops, please find her contact information here.
Sample Workshops
(Un)broken:
Leveraging the Poetic Line
Thinking Narratively
about Research
Poetry Matters:
Ekphrastic Attention
A Guide to
Literary Magazine Publishing
Testimonials
"To teach writing must be in part an exercise in showing us, students, how to move across time as literature does. This is a difficult task, necessarily objective, as movement through time is universal, and thus standardized, while dually subjective: each person will move differently. Sarah—and her graceful navigation of this task—has been crucial to my writing journey. I learn endlessly from her attention and dedication to the momentum of narrative—how one should craft creative work, and why we should. I’m so thankful for the writing experiences and connections that Sarah fosters. I cannot overstate how special they are.”
— Zoe Lubetkin,
student
“Sarah is a generous, engaged reader, and her critiques immensely improved my technical abilities as a poet. She helped me develop routines for a more consistent writing practice and habits for a more rigorous approach to revision. She introduced me to forms, concepts, and poets that I might not have encountered otherwise, renewing my excitement about poetry’s possibilities. But the greatest impact Sarah had was to encourage me to undertake the terrifying work of facing my own mind and the way it encounters the world. Sarah discerned how my poems were already working to express my experience and guided me to refine the promising impulses present in my work. Sarah had this impact because of her willingness to connect with me as a whole person—one beset by anxieties about embracing my voice and putting it into the world—and her willingness to share how she had addressed similar fears in her own life.”
— E.G.,
mentee
“I loved learning with Sarah. Her teaching was clear and knowledgeable; her lessons helped me develop a more appreciative, analytic ear for poetry that’s been huge for me in my writing. And maybe more than this, I admired Sarah's style of steady, supportive leadership: she showed real respect for everyone’s work and perspective, and guided critiques with a focus and care that made each class feel valuable. I left feeling grateful and encouraged.”
— Heather White,
workshop participant
“Sarah was an inspiring positive instructor who focused on elements of craft while encouraging creativity and imaginative expression. I really enjoyed the course and found her specific feedback on my poems very helpful.”
— Barb Kelly,
workshop participant