“Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable.”
“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”
“The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.”
Soul Bone℠ is a hub for poets and writers of all skill levels and in all phases of their careers. In our online literary festivals and literary center workshops and readings, we encourage vulnerable, creative exploration and experimentation; use spirituality, meditation, and self-care as tools to open up the creative imagination; use writing as a healing modality; explore all aspects of craft; and aim to create an authentic, heart-centered community. We believe that, as poets and writers, we have an exceptional ability to embrace the unknown. We are able to communicate the unknowable, imagine the unimaginable, say the unsayable. We are the voices of the future, pointing to new ways of seeing and other ways of being.
Language, images, metaphors, and stories have power to move, transform, and bring change. At Soul Bone℠, we start with you—your vision and process as a writer. We hold space and provide nourishment as well as challenge to get messy, connect to your intuition, and help you journey into the wilderness of your creative imagination where writing finds its pulse.
Soul Bone℠ Literary Center
Soul Bone℠ offers tiny, winged courses that lift the spirit. Our Soul Bone℠ Literary Center offers generative workshops, prompt circles, readings, and master classes on pitching, publishing, creative process, and more. We are doing our utmost to keep our events at low cost. All events have full scholarship opportunities and coupon codes for discounts available to anyone on our mailing list (sign up on the contact page here). The sessions will be hosted by Nynke Passi with Jennifer or Eileen Espinoza, Emilie Lygren, and others. Some of our guests will be Mark Spragg, Kenny Kolter, Jennie Rothenburg, and more. Check out our upcoming events below or in our Calendar here. For a more detailed description, click here or below.
Soul Bone℠ Literary Festival
“This is an amazing festival. None better. And the scope of speakers, workshops is beyond compare. You’d never know it was coming over Zoom, the connection with like creatives and souls is mind blowing. Come check it out. Still another week of workshops/talks/readings and the best community ever.”
“Soul Bone has been a life changing experience I treasure daily. I am thrilled to be visiting Soul Bone and anchoring myself among the most incredible tribe of authentic creative souls I’ve ever met!”
“I’ve been to several Soul Bone conferences — really awesome experiences — nothing compares.”
“I had a wonderful residency. Everything here was very inspiring to me. It felt like a warm hug.”
Our Soul Bone℠ Literary Festivals are open to the public and held online via Zoom every February and every August / September. Our Spring ‘26 festival will be small but is currently on Eventbrite! Register below. Our festival schedule is being updated so please check back the Eventbrite link for more offerings. In Spring, we’ll also offer a reading series.
The Soul Bone℠ Literary Festival coincides with the residencies of the MFA in Creative Writing at MIU, since both were founded and are directed by Nynke Passi. The festival is co-sponsored by Soul Bone℠ and MIU’s MFA in Creative Writing.
ZOOM REGISTRATION of SOUL BONE℠ EVENTS via EVENTBRITE
If you subscribe to our newsletter, we’ll send you regular coupons for discounts and update you on our offerings. Contact us at soulboneliterary@gmail.com or sign up below for our newsletter to get more information. If you want to learn more about our MFA in Creative Writing, contact Nynke Passi at npassi@miu.edu or check out MIU’s MFA in Creative Writing website here.
“When you’re young and you tell people you’re going to study art and poetry, they look at you as though you’re crazy. When you’re older and you tell people you studied art and poetry, they say, I wish I’d done that.”
Soul Bone℠ Overview
Soul Bone℠ Literary Center
Love to write? Our Soul Bone℠ literary center offers affordable online workshops and classes geared toward creative process, craft, and the intersection between writing, creativity, and healing. Please join us!
Learn More →
Soul Bone℠ Coalition of Writers
Let us introduce you to the core coalition of writers behind Soul Bone.
Read More →
And let us introduce you to many communities, writers, and offerings we highly recommend to you here!
MIU’s MFA in Creative Writing
If you are thinking of joining MIU’s online MFA in creative writing, you can find out all you want to know here. We’ll introduce our faculty, some of our classes, and our teaching philosophy.
Read More →
Upcoming Workshops
Want to write and connect to a literary community? Find out about our upcoming workshops, which will be offered through our Soul Bone℠ literary center.
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Support Soul Bone℠
We have a crowdsourcing campaign going in order to better support the growth of Soul Bone℠. We use all donations and fees to pay our guests and offer low-cost or free events. We are so appreciative of your support!
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Upcoming Readings & Events
Feel like being inspired? All year, we offer free events and readings through our Soul Bone℠ literary center and literary festivals. Our next events will be part of a Spring ‘26 reading series. Please join us!
Learn More →
Soul Bone℠ News
Below news from Soul Bone and the literary community of Soul Bone and MIU’s MFA in Creative Writing:
Poetry and Art Exchange with 8th and 9th Grade Students in Pakistan:
Hague Academy with Poet Emilie Lygren
Emilie Lygren, part of our coalition of writers, MIU MFA graduate and now also MFA Mentor, shared this video of a collaborative poetry and art exchange with 8th and 9th grade students in Pakistan via Hague Academy. This concerns a learning experience like no other: a cross cultural learning opportunity, where they used poetry and art to express their thoughts on the world around them. Emilie kept sharing poems with us - and they are truly mindblowingly great!
Soul Bone Community Accomplishments
Our graduate Dominque Feloss not only won the 2024 John Lewis Writing Grant and her MFA in Creative Writing this past year, but she also has a short story published in the anthology Testament.
Our former student Madhav Sharma is the featured poet at the Pennsylvania Poetry Society’s 2nd Wednesday Zoom Poetry Series’s Open Mic on February 11.
MIU MFA student Dominque Feloss won the 2024 John Lewis Writing Grant in fiction. Georgia Writers’ John Lewis Writing Grants are inspired by the late civil rights icon and his more than three decades of service as Georgia’s 5th District representative. The John Lewis Writing Grants will be awarded annually in the categories of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The purpose of the grants is to elevate, encourage, and inspire the voices of Black writers in Georgia. These grants are generously supported by the Georgia Council for the Arts.
Our graduate Emilie Lygren is publishing her MFA thesis, Once I Was a Stone, with Wayfarer Books. Read more here. “Emilie Lygren’s poems are pulse and heartbeat! Their clear vision restores our own bigger sight. Remember when we felt connected to everything? Emilie’s poems are gravity, immediate ground, wide horizon, ashes pitched off a cliff, creek stones carried up a mountain. I love their endearing truthfulness, beauty and lack of fear!” – Naomi Shihab Nye
Our MFA student Nate Hudson will be touring Australia in the summer of ‘25. Introducing Nate Faker - the long-awaited solo debut from Nathan Hudson, the founding member, vocalist and guitarist of iconic Australian alt-rock legends Faker. This electrifying new chapter will see Nate reimagine Faker’s iconic back catalogue, unveil unreleased gems, share stories from across the band’s illustrious career, and more. The tour will take place in Australia in July and August. You can find out more here.
Director of Soul Bone and MIU’s MFA in Creative Writing, Nynke Passi, has seven poems out in the wonderful new issue of Tupelo Quarterly, TQ37, edited by Kristina Marie Darling.
Self-Portrait as Grief
sitting next
to the corpse
of my mother I fall
from the cloud
of my body
like snow
—Nynke Salverda Passi
TUPELO QUARTERLY
You can find Nynke’s poems here. Click the arrow at the bottom of the poem-box to see each next page
You can read the full issue online here. You will not regret reading all of it!
You can find Tupelo Quarterly home page here.
I Don't Want to Be Understood
by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
Recommended by the Poetry Foundation
Shortlisted with Distinction - The 2024 TFR Reader’s Choice Awards
A Finalist for the 2025 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry
A Finalist for the 2025 Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature
A Finalist for the 2026 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
"The potent and focused fourth collection from Espinoza (There Should Be Flowers) captures the danger, mental strain, and transcendence of a trans woman’s experience. ... At times devastating, at times chilling, this volume expresses an exhilarating defiance."
—Publishers Weekly
Jennifer Espinoza is part of our Coalition of Soul Bone Writers.
How to Get Home in the Dark:
Poems on Mental Health and Healing
Edited by Emilie Lygren, Foreword by Danusha Laméris. You can order a signed copy here.
How to Get Home in the Dark: Poems on Mental Health and Healing Established poets take inventory of what impacts their mental health, what has contributed to their healing and growth, and offer short poems for hard days.
“A landmark anthology! With immense care, understanding, and affection, poet and teacher Emilie Lygren has created a gorgeous gathering of poems to help us survive our most difficult times. Who among us will not find themselves here? These well-chosen, profoundly moving works and Lygren’s graciously gentle writing suggestions are a compass, a guide, for all hard days to come, and all the love we need to find one another.” – Naomi Shihab Nye
Emilie Lygren is part of our Coalition of Soul Bone Writers.
StarWound present ‘Interiors Project’
The Anglophone Music Group “StarWound” flew from Greece and performed in six cities in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa, presenting new songs in collaboration with prominent poetry professors, students of the universities and poets of the local communities. They also stopped at M.I.U. to work with our MFA students and undergraduate English and Cinematic Arts and New Media Students for a lyric workshop, plus they offered a concert at Café Paradiso in Fairfield, Iowa, on Friday October 25, 2024, starting at 7:30 PM CT.
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