Beautiful Monsters: Writing the Villains of Myth and Folklore

Who gets remembered as the monster, and who gets to be the hero?

In this generative poetry workshop, we will turn toward the so-called ugly, failed, feared, and villainised figures of myth and folklore — witches I’m, tricksters, traitors, stepmothers, the half-made and half-human.

Through reading, guided prompts and intuitive exercises, you will be invited to reimagine mythic antagonists from the inside: to give language to what was misnamed as evil, to trace how power, gender, race, disability, and otherness shape who is cast as monstrous.

We’ll explore how folklore travels across cultures, mutates through time, and carries moral judgments that can be questioned, subverted, or made tender.

By the end of the session, you will leave with new poems or drafts that reclaim villainous figures and use myth as a living, disruptive force.