This is an in-person workshop that takes place at Inprint House
Establishing Your Voice; Knowing Your Audience
This workshop invites writers to think more intentionally about how the concept of an audience shapes their voice, tone, and the creative risks they take. Drawing on the distinct literary approaches of Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright, we explore what it means to write from within a community versus writing about a community, under pressure to explain, justify, or perform. Rather than positioning these approaches in opposition to each other, the workshop uses them to open a broader conversation about power, visibility, and responsibility in storytelling.
Through guided reading, conversation, and generative writing, participants are encouraged to notice how their own language shifts depending on who they imagine is listening. The emphasis is on awareness and ultimately offers writers space to reflect on factors such as voice, authority, and trust on the page without determining a single “correct” method. Designed for writers of fiction at all experience levels, but also applicable across genres, this workshop will create a focused, supportive environment for experimentation and reflection.
About the Instructor
LA-TOYA SCOTT is a first-generation scholar and an Assistant Professor of African American Literature and Culture at Sam Houston State University. Her research and teaching center Black feminist thought, African American literary history, and the cultural production of Black sanctuary and resistance across literature, digital media, and public life. She is the author of the forthcoming monograph In Hush to Harbor: Black Sanctuary from Slavery to Trump’s America (Rutgers University Press, 2026). Her scholarship has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections, including Women, Gender, and Families of Color, Supernatural Studies, and Peitho, as well as in volumes on Black feminist and womanist pedagogy. She regularly presents her research at national and international conferences, including the Modern Language Association Convention and the South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Scott is the founder of The Writer’s Table, a community-centered writing initiative that brings literary study, craft, and conversation into accessible public spaces. She is a TEDx speaker and frequently speaks on writing, Black cultural criticism, and navigating nonlinear academic and creative careers.
By registering for an Inprint Writers Workshop you are agreeing to Inprint’s registration policies. If this workshop is full when you try to register, please sign up on the waiting list here so you receive priority registration the next time this class is offered. For details and a schedule of all the current workshop offerings, click here.
