If you're a poet, essayist, or poetic-essayist in search of structure for your tender work, the hermit crab form may be right for you! Like its scavenger namesake, hermit crab writing borrows from what's lying around – anything from class syllabi to medication labels to Excel spreadsheets. We'll brainstorm potential forms together and read examples from Shira Erlichman, Victoria Chang, and more. After this, we'll draft new pieces or rework old ones in a chosen form.

Mary Zhou (they/she) is an artist based in Philadelphia. Their writing is published or forthcoming in Oversound, Philadelphia Stories, and Philadelphia Poet Laureate Trapeta B. Mayson’s Healing Verse Poetry Line. Poetry and essay, both read and written, has carried them through the last two years. You can find them online at marzhou.com or Instagram @maryzzzhou