Write a Demi-Sonnet!
A Workshop with Erin Murphy
Instructor: Erin Murphy
Date: June 11, 2026
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 PM Eastern
Price: $25 (sliding scale)
>>> Register Here <<<
Readings are recorded and shared with all who sign up.
~ About The Workshop ~
In this generative workshop, you will learn to write a demi-sonnet, a form invented by the instructor, Erin Murphy. Demi-sonnets are seven lines (half a sonnet!) and end with a full or slant rhyme. Poet Susan Rich calls the demi-sonnet “a gorgeous and important form,” while Claire Bateman describes demi-sonnets as “small but alarmingly penetrative” and James Allen Hall says they “go by quickly but their staying power is immense.” Read sample demi-sonnets here and here. And here is a prize-winning demi-sonnet by Jennifer Wang written in response to a Rattle magazine prompt. During the workshop, you’ll read and discuss sample demi-sonnets, write one (or several) yourself, and learn how practicing the compressed form has applications for composing and editing both poetry and prose. NOTE: Participants should bring to the workshop 3-5 original poems of 20-60 lines each.
~ About The Workshop Instructor ~
Erin Murphy is the author or editor of sixteen books, most recently Swoon: New and Selected Poems, Human Resources, Mother as Conjunction: Lyric Essays, and Fluent in Blue, winner of the 2025 American Book Fest Best Book Award in Poetry. Her collections of demi-sonnets include the new work in Swoon (2026); Taxonomies (2022), Assisted Living (2018), and Word Problems (2011). Her latest anthology is The Book of Jobs: Poems About Work (ONE ART and Penn State University Libraries); a volume of documentary poetry is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press. Her work has appeared in Ecotone, New World Writing, Women’s Studies Quarterly, The Best of Brevity, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and anthologies from Random House, Bloomsbury, and Bedford/St. Martin’s. Her awards include a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, the Foley Poetry Award, the Paterson Prize for Literary Excellence, and the Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award. She is poetry editor of The Summerset Review and professor of English at Penn State University where she has been named the 2026-27 Penn State Laureate. Website: erin-murphy.com
