Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Instructor Bio:

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, M.F.A., author of the poetry collection Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites and Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge. Ms. Bermejo is a former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, and she has received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, Jentel, Yefe Nof and National Parks Arts Foundation in partnership with Gettysburg National Military Park and Poetry Foundation. She is the director of Women Who Submit.

Instructor Statement: 

As I writer, I seek to inspire radical empathy in myself and in my readers. In today’s world, I believe writing and reading is one of our strongest forms of resistance. To ask others to look beyond their own biases and understandings of the world through writing and reading, to ask others to be brave enough to open themselves to others’ experiences is what we need right now. As a writing teacher, I look for readings and poems that will spark conversation in class and lead to exercises and experimentations that help students find their own voice and own strategies for writing for social change. I do not believe I have the answers. I am not a lecturer. I am a practical learner and I conduct class much in the way I like to learn, through open discussion, collective knowledge, experimentation and practice.