The Art of the Chapbook
In-Person – Harvey Milk Center for the Arts
50 Scott Street
San Francisco
Instructor: Paul Corman-Roberts
Schedule: Saturdays | 2:00-4:30 pm
Oct 29 – Dec 5, 2026
Tuition: $450
Creating a short publishable manuscript of poems.
Chapbooks are increasingly popular in the indie lit world as a vehicle for getting published, and a calling card for many respected poets and writers that gets their work noticed by other presses.
In this course, we will develop manuscripts for publication in chapbook form that are “market ready”.Even if you feel you don’t have enough material for a full chap collection, we’ve got you covered with both generative and editorial writing prompts to bring a special manuscript together.
The workshop will also go over the various options for publication, distribution, and the basic do’s and don’ts of chapbook submissions. By the time the workshop concludes, you will be in possession of a chapbook-length manuscript of poetry or prose ready to shop around to small presses, take to the print shop or to POD distributors.
Paul Corman-Roberts
Paul Corman-Roberts is the author of the Firecracker nominated poetry collection Bone Moon Palace (Black Lawrence 2021) and the recently released chapbook 19th Street Station Volume 2 (Collapse Press 2025.) An MA/MFA graduate of New College Poetics, he currently teaches with the San Francisco Creative Writing Institute and the Oakland Unified School District. Along with Lynn Alexander he is co-founder of Collapse Press and it’s online showcase “The Friday Collapse” and occasionally fills in as drummer for the US Ghostal Service, and his own project, The There Their They’re.