2026 Workshop Series: March

Misspelling & Misread 
facilitated by Samira Asma-Sadeque
Monday, March 9, 2026
7-9pm EST
Zoom

the workshop:

This is a workshop that looks at how changing a letter in a word can entirely change the meaning of a word -- and therefore the sentence, and therefore the story. It comes from my own struggle with often misreading or mis-hearing words which I've realized can bear profound meanings when given the right chance --- e.g. reading "there were stars in the sky that night" as "there were scars in the sky that night"; or hearing the sentence "We’re born with a lot of weaknesses" as "We’re born with a lot of weaknesses witnesses." A change in the spelling of just one word can catapult the sentence into a poetic inspiration, and that is what this workshop will explore. I also believe this may be a useful activity for poets with dyslexia or those hard of hearing. 

For this, we will refer to poems such as Blades of Grace by Carline Duan to see the poet's use of similar techniques. We will do a quick glance through of Found poetry, cento and erasure poetry so as to establish with the readers how to work with outsourced texts. We will use anything from books, magazines, your breakup texts, scam email, voice notes to at first workshop a poem together as a class, and then break into writing our own individual writings. 

the facilitator:

Samira Asma-Sadeque is a Brooklyn-based Bangladeshi poet and journalist. Her poetry explores immigration, mental health, mothers, and love. Her poems have been featured in Button Poetry, HBO’s Take Out With Lisa Ling, ALLArts TV’s First Twenty series, No, Dear Magazine, Gutter Magazine, and West Trade Review among other platforms. She is a Best of the Net Nominee, a Brooklyn Poets Fellow and a Tin House alum. 

Her journalism, exploring topics of immigrant communities, climate change, mental health and domestic violence appears in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and Al Jazeera. 

Check out Samira’s poem, “How to mourn the dead, notes from a different land,” in Issue 24: BORDER!

discount codes for those who need

No, Dear aims to be as inclusive and barrier-free as we can. If the workshop rate is a barrier for you to participate, please keep reading!

• If you’re a student or a senior citizen, and would benefit from a $10 reduction in the price, use the code LEARN at checkout.

• If you’re experiencing financial hardship, and would only be able to participate with a $20 reduction in the price, use the code SUPPORT at checkout.

• If you’re in need of a full scholarship, email your interest to nodearmagazine at gmail dot com.