Ray Rasmussen, Haibun Co-Editor at Haibun Today, is forming a haibun study group for writers who would like to increase their knowledge of the genre and improve their writing. The forum will explore style and content variation in haibun composition.

Ray will take forum members through a series of readings and exercises aimed at accomplishing the following goals:

• to better understand how the three elements of haibun: title, prose and poem(s) work together.
• to increase an understanding of haibun prose and how it differs from other prose forms such as prose poems, flash fiction, short stories, journal entries, essays and travel writing.
• to increase awareness of different approaches to haibun, e.g., minimalist, memoir, traditional, high poetry (the later two terms coined by Ken Jones), travel diary (a la Basho), ekphrastic, fantasy and noir.
• to increase skill in writing haibun.

Membership will be limited to about 8 participants and is free. What is wanted is a few hours of study and bi-monthly written contributions to the workshop forum. Of course, at times for various reasons, members will not actively participate in the forum.

If interested, send a short bio to Ray at ray@raysweb.net. Include a few of your published or draft stage haibun, if you have any. Explain briefly why you are interested in haibun and the forum. Mention what level of time commitment you can make.