Year-Long Poetry Apprenticeship with Heid E. Erdrich

6 Wednesdays, January 21 – February 25, 2026 | 6-8 PM CT

Not sure if the year-long writing project is for you? Need more time to prepare your writing or work with Heid prior to the start of the Poetry Apprenticeship? Can't wait until summer of 2026 to start working on your project? Starting in January 2026, Heid is offering a 6-week crash course in how to polish & refine your poetry manuscript prior to the start of her yearlong writing project.

• Kim Blaeser
• Marilyn Nelson
• G.E. Patterson
• Su Hwang
• Michael Kleber Diggs
• Roy Guzman
• Elise Paschen

• Personal Best: Makers on Their Poems that Matter Most edited by Erin Belieu and Carl Philips
• Tallchief, Elise Paschen (source of the title for Killers of the Flower Moon)  
• Copper Yearning, Kimberly Blaeser 
• Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom, Felicia Rose Chavez
• Ordering the Storm - How to Put Together a Book of Poems, Susan Grimm

The syllabus will be provided each term. It will include the information you see here and a finalized schedule. You are responsible for referring to the syllabus regularly. I will often remind us of it as well.

I will be available to you outside of class via email throughout the year. I want to hear from you and am excited to develop our apprenticeship, however part of what I want to show you is that a writer, especially a working writer, needs strong boundaries. Monday and Fridays are my writing days. My mentorship and other work takes place Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. 

If you email me Monday through Thursday, you should receive a message back quickly. If you email me after 5 p.m. on Thursday or during a weekend or holiday, I may not be able to get back to you before the next Tuesday. I am, however, open to a text at any time for urgent or joyful messages - like a publication or reading opportunity. If you will miss a meeting or be less prepared than expected, please give me 24 hours notice if at all possible. I will share my contact information on the first day. I do not use voicemail. A text is preferred.

For information about the Loft’s commitment to equity, inclusion, and anti-racism, and the Loft’s expectations around behavior in classrooms, events, festivals, and conferences, please see loft.org.

All of our manuscripts are disbursed electronically via a digital service after our first meeting. You must have basic Microsoft Word, Google Docs and email literacy.  

All documents shared with me must be Google docs (rather than PDFs) so we can comment within the document

Over the course of the year, you will read and discuss your own and your cohorts’ work. The format of peer discussion will vary and you and your cohort will determine how your time together will be shaped, but for now we will call that time workshop. Because our class model favors one-on-one time with me, we might not have time to complete eight full workshops before the end of the winter term. We do, however, have time to do some small group workshopping. We will read about different forms of workshopping and make a workshop agreement before we proceed.