Unfold.

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.

​Every April, people who are fully losing their minds (we mean poets) attempt to write 30 poems in 30 days! More info here.

​Come if you’re looking for community and accountability around writing. Come if you’ve never written a poem or if you’ve published multiple books. Definitely especially come if you’re attempting to write 30 poems in 30 days. ​

Two thoughts:

​1. You're not required to write a single poem if you don't want to or can't. You're welcome to just come for the community or to write a poem or two.

2. We believe you can do it. This workshop series is intentionally designed to help folks get to 30 (or more!) poems. Some workshops will help you write multiple drafts so you can increase your count quickly.

You can write whatever you like! Most of what we read together will come from poetry, but not all of it. The writing in this workshop tends to skew toward poetry (it is, after all, National Poetry Writing Month), but you’re welcome to write or create in whatever genre works for you.

​Nope! Most people do, but we promise not to make you feel weird if you choose not to. Engage at your own comfort level

This is a live/synchronous poetry community, so workshops will not be recorded. Being there is part of the magic! Workshops are all on separate topics, so you won't be missing crucial information if you have to miss a few sessions.

However, our first session, 6 guest workshops, last session, and showcase are all recorded. You will also receive a packet of poems to read and a writing prompt each day, whether or not you attend the live session.

​Nope! Some people do, and some people come once. Most attend frequently but not every day. You are free to come and go based on your personal schedule and what works for you. If you’re committing to the membership (and/or trying to write 30 poems in 30 days), we recommend stretching yourself a bit and coming as often as you can.

At the end of March 2022, I posted an Instagram story asking if anyone wanted to be #NaPoWriMo accountabilibuddies. At first, I was just looking for someone to text drafts back and forth with. Previously, I had failed to write 30 poems in 30 days almost as many times as I had tried. I always hit a wall 5-10 days in and got so behind that I gave up.

A ton of people responded to my story and I started thinking, “What if…?” On a whim, I decided to post a Zoom link every day in April. 

The first day, 4 of my friends showed up. I was wildly nervous and I thought, “Well that was cool, maybe this’ll last a few days before it fizzles out.” Then people kept showing up. Then 6 people offered to co-host a workshop. Then more people found us. Then I planned a workshop every single day for 30 days straight. Then we did a reading! There was never a day that no one showed up.

​In April, I spent all of my free time reading poetry, looking for poems that spoke to each other, thinking about questions I could ask that would pull poems out of the 26 people who showed up. I got better at facilitating, leading discussion, creating prompts, and showing up to writing every day and exercising the muscle. I wrote 38 poems, and our group collectively wrote about 200 poems! This community held each other with such care. It really felt like we did something. I immediately started planning for the next year, and here we are!

In 2023, members of our community wrote 1,504 poems through Unfold. WOW.