ONLINE Does This Sentence Need a Comma? Playing With Punctuation in Prose and Poetry
One-Day Workshop | Monday, August 24, 2026
9am-12pm PT | 10am-1pm MT | 11am-2pm CT | 12pm-3pm ET | 1pm-4pm AT
Instructor: Marion Lougheed
MEMBER PRICE: $75.00
NON-MEMBER PRICE: $100.00
Does an em-dash really mean it was written by AI? Do I need to care about the Oxford comma? How many exclamation marks am I allowed? What are the formal rules of punctuation? Do they even matter? In this workshop, editor and writer Marion Lougheed will take you on a lighthearted and informative journey into the world of dashes, semi-colons, and even ellipses. We’ll explore the reasons why formal rules exist, when those rules can be bent, and how much writers can ignore them entirely. For prose writers and poets. Come for the commas; stay for the lively discussion of author voice.
This class takes place online using the Zoom.
Marion Lougheed is a writer, anthropologist and editor who grew up in four countries on three continents. Her poetry collection Baggage Claim (Off Topic Publishing) delves into that experience and is dedicated to everyone whose hometown is a suitcase. Marion's writing has appeared in Writer's Digest, The Guardian, Reflex Press, and many more. Her poem "Pavane for a Dead Letter" was featured in the LCP's 2021 Poem In Your Pocket Day series, and "Rooftops" won the Prime 53 Poem Summer Challenge (Press 53). Her flash fiction was shortlisted for the Sunlight Press Flash Fiction Contest and she has been a finalist in more than one Globe Soup contest. Marion holds a diploma in professional writing from Memorial University of Newfoundland, where she worked for five years as a peer writing tutor, and a MA in anthropology from Simon Fraser University. Find her at www.marionlougheed.com
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