Writing With the 'I Am' Present

Zell Miller III leads a writing workshop at the Spicewood Springs Branch Library on Monday, September 21, from 6:15 PM to 7:45 PM. The session is titled Writing With the “I Am” Present and focuses on exploring the personal through "I" statements.

Miller is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Austin, Texas, and brings a deep theater background to the room. He's an award-winning interdisciplinary theater artist, playwright, and the Producing Artistic Director of Black Rose Theater ATX, where his work centers on identity, culture, and the human experience. The Austin Chronicle named him Best Poet/Writer in 2004, and he was inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame in 2017. He's opened for Nikki Giovanni and The Last Poets and has appeared on PBS and KVUE News.

His writing spans both the stage and the page. He's written thirteen full-length award-winning plays, including Chronicles of an Indigenous Offspring, My Child, My Child, My Alien Child, and Up Hoodies Down, and he received the David Mark Cohen Playwright Award. His first book of poetry, Austin Indigenous Offspring (310 Brown Street Publishing), was a 2026 Summer read in The Austin Chronicle. He was also a featured author for Austin's African-American Book Festival and the 2026 Texas Book Festival.

This workshop is the first of a three-part series from the Badgerdog Creative Writing program, which is run by The Library Foundation. Badgerdog offers workshops for all ages, classroom lessons, and youth camps. The session runs from 6:15 PM to 7:45 PM at the Spicewood Springs Branch, 8637 Spicewood Springs Rd., and it's free and open to the public.