Hi! I'm Tristan! Here's my formal bio:

Tristan Richards (she/her) is a poet, educator, 4w3 so, ENFP, gemini sun/cancer moon/virgo rising, and equal parts sarcastic and sappy. She also makes a solid playlist.

Tristan is the author of two self-published chapbooks: Not All Challenges Are For Us (2022) and The Year Was Done Right (2019). Her poems have been published in ALOCASIA, Writers Resist, trampset, Preposition: The Undercurrent Anthology, on the Mankato Poetry Walk & Ride, and in Firethorne. She is the recipient of a Professional Mid-Career Artist Grant from the Minnesota Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council.

Each April, Tristan facilitates Unfold, a daily poetry writing workshop for National Poetry Writing Month. You can find her newsletter here.

Tristan holds an MA in Leadership in Student Affairs from the University of St. Thomas and a BA in Communication Studies from Gustavus Adolphus College. She worked in higher education until 2022.

Technically, no. I am piggybacking off the energy around NaNoWriMo* and providing a space geared more toward poets and creative nonfiction writers. However, if you are working on a novel this month, you’re still welcome to join us! As someone who has attempted (and failed) NaNoWriMo several times, some of my most productive writing sessions came out of facilitated writing sprints. playBC workshops are essentially writing sprints with more dialogue and community building. You’re welcome to adapt our prompts to fit any project you’re working on and write in community even if it isn’t a poem.

*NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month. Each November, many novelists try to start and finish writing a 50,000 word novel.

Everyone! Each time I host a daily workshop like this, everyone from people who have never written a poem to professional poets and teaching artists join us. There is no qualification you need to meet; no requirement to share your writing if you’d rather not. You don't even have to write poetry!

I am mostly insane, so I love taking on massive projects like this. I will show up every day with fully fleshed out writing workshops and plenty of energy. How you engage is up to you! Some writers come every day, some pop in once or twice, and most attend several times each week. Attendance is not taken and nothing is required—you get to decide what kind of experience and engagement level you want to have!

Because this is my full time job :) A lot of work goes into building community and facilitating workshops and unfortunately I have bills to pay and, like, occasional coffee to drink.

Honestly? Because members of this community keep telling me I’m not charging them enough. My first large workshop was entirely free with a brief donation request on the last day. When Unfold, my daily workshop in April, grew in 2023, I started charging $60 for access to 30 workshops, which was not nearly enough to justify the work that went into it, but I was scared :) In 2024 I raised my prices and I likely will again in 2025. It’s intimidating to turn what used to be something you did for free into a career, and I’m so grateful to all the writers who have yelled at me about getting over myself and asking for fair income. This is how I make it possible to keep providing workshops into the future.

Listen, I get it. I will always have lower price points, payment plans, and limited scholarships available for writers who need them. I have been that writer more times than not, and I know how vulnerable it can be to admit you need help doing something that others have no trouble paying for. I’m not interested in locking you out of writing community in the name of capitalism. Please reach out if you want to join us but need a little support!

Great question! With the membership, you'll get an email from me every day in November, which will include a packet of poems to read, a brief form lesson, and a writing prompt or two. You'll get a more interactive experience from attending the live workshops, but this way, you can keep up with playBC at your own pace! So yes, I think it's still very much worth the membership if you're interested in writing more in November.