The Madwomen in the Attic

Home
United States
Pittsburgh, PA
The Madwomen in the Attic

Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops The Madwoman in the Attic was Sandra Gilbert's and Susan Gubar’s ground-breaking study of the 19th-century woman writer.

The women of the Carlow Women's Creative Writing Center have adopted this term with good humor and a healthy dose of irony. The Madwomen in the Attic workshops have more magic than madness in them, and they are designed to help women writers tap into their ability to communicate through poetry and prose. Through small, supportive, but powerful workshops, women writers have the opportunity to test

out their poetry and prose with a group of like-minded and serious women writers. Carlow University began sponsoring workshops for women writers in 1979. Founded by the late Carlow professor Dr. Ellie Wymard, the semester-long workshops are for women writers of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. They are interactive, cross-cultural, intergenerational, and intensive. Workshops consist of community members and Carlow undergraduates. The workshops foster a supportive yet challenging environment for writers, some of whom have just begun their writing experience and others who have advanced degrees and publications. Esteemed fiction writer Jane Candia Coleman was the first director of the Madwomen. Later, poet Patricia Dobler directed and developed the Madwomen until her death in 2004. Poet Jan Beatty directed the program after Dobler’s death and retired in December 2021. Poet Kayla Sargeson now serves as Interim Director.

08/10/2026

The Madwomen in the Attic and MadBooks present
A reading of Barbara Wolvovitz’s The Only Way to Now
Wednesday, September 2, 2026
7:00-8:30 p.m. EDT
Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh (Squirrel Hill Location), Room Levinson B
5738 Darlington Road, Pittsburgh PA 15217
Free and open to the public, but please RSVP: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/vnV01hK94q
Books available for sale

BARBARA M. WOLVOVITZ was a retired civil rights attorney and New York city tenants’ rights advocate turned poet. She began participating in Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops in 2013. Wolvovitz was a past recipient of the Susan B. Anthony Award presented by the Women’s Bar Association of Western Pennsylvania. Her poems have appeared in The Nation, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh City Paper, and Voices from the Attic. She was originally from Brooklyn before moving to Pittsburgh. She died on April 5, 2026.

This reading is sponsored by Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic Creative Writing Program and MadBooks. This event is not sponsored by the JCCPGH.

Copies of The Only Way to Now are available for purchase now for $15; please contact [email protected].

06/09/2026

Be a Madwoman this fall! Registration opens on June 15 for Fall 2026 Madwomen creative writing workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry! 12-week and 8-week workshops, online and on-campus options, $250 (complete fee waivers and pay-what-you-can available, no questions asked). Complete info: bit.ly/fa26mad

05/12/2026

THIS SUNDAY! Join us for a Mad premiere!

Madwomen Digital Storytelling Premiere
Sunday, May 17, 2026
3:00-5:00 p.m. EDT
COhatch, 5428 Walnut Street, Pittsburgh PA; and on Zoom https://carlow-edu.zoom.us/j/92777557817?pwd=mbmTcHcWlJtDmtPadR13h1T1ZGY91c.1
Free and open to the public
Madwomen from Christina Fisanick’s digital storytelling workshops will present a premiere of their created digital stories: 2-4-minute videos that combine voiceover, still and moving images, and a soundtrack. Think Ken Burns but much shorter! The program will run for about an hour. Following the program, the audience will have an opportunity to ask questions and socialize. Light refreshments provided.

The Madwomen Digital Storytelling Premiere, originally scheduled for April 26, will now be on Sunday, May 17th from 3:00-5:00 p.m. EDT! See the details below.

Madwomen Digital Storytelling Premiere
Sunday, May 17, 2026
3:00-5:00 p.m. EDT
COhatch, 5428 Walnut Street, Pittsburgh PA; and on Zoom https://carlow-edu.zoom.us/j/92777557817?pwd=mbmTcHcWlJtDmtPadR13h1T1ZGY91c.1
Free and open to the public
Madwomen from Christina Fisanick’s digital storytelling workshops will present a premiere of their created digital stories: 2-4-minute videos that combine voiceover, still and moving images, and a soundtrack. Think Ken Burns but much shorter! The program will run for about an hour. Following the program, the audience will have an opportunity to ask questions and socialize. Light refreshments provided.

05/05/2026

Time to spotlight one of our upcoming summer workshops that still has plenty of room!

Digital Storytelling with Christina Fisanick
Wednesdays, May 20-June 24, 2026, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
Online via Zoom
Make your literary nonfiction essays, narrative poems, or short fiction richer and more accessible by turning them into short movies! In this introduction to digital storytelling (no filmmaking experience required), participants will learn how to take their personal narratives to the next level by adding the sound of their voice, still and moving images, and a soundtrack to create 2-4-minute documentary-style movies. While some of our class meetings will involve mini-lectures and tutorials, other sessions will focus on workshop drafts at different stages of the composing process. The course will culminate with a public premiere of completed digital stories. To see examples of digital stories, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo8xrY0XxT4

Dr. Christina Fisanick is an internationally recognized scholar in digital storytelling and is the co-author, along with Robert Stakeley from the Heinz History Center, of Digital Storytelling as Public History: A Guidebook for Educators (Routledge, 2020). In addition, she is the editor or author of more than thirty other books and over a hundred essays, poems, and articles. Her collection of essays, Pulling the Thread: Untangling Wheeling History, was published by North Meridian Press in 2024, and her co-edited anthology, We Are Here!: New Writing from Northern Appalachia, was published by the University of Kentucky Press in 2025. Fisanick is the president of the Writers Association of Northern Appalachia (WANA) and the co-host of WANA LIVE!, WANA’s weekly reading series. www.christinafisanick.com.

Sign up today at https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/VkfKgx2aTE Workshop fee waivers (no questions asked) and pay-what-you-can, when-you-can available to all who need them!

04/20/2026

Be a Madwoman this summer! Registration is open for Summer 2026 Madwomen workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry! 6-week workshops, online and on-campus options, $175 for 6 weeks (scholarships and pay-what-you-can available). Complete info: bit.ly/su26mad

The Madwomen Digital Storytelling Premiere, originally scheduled for April 26, will now be on Sunday, May 17th from 3:00...

04/16/2026

04/07/2026

THIS FRIDAY! Join us on April 10 for the 2025 Patricia Dobler Poetry Award Reading, featuring Jenny Johnson, judge of the 2025 award, and Diana Tokaji, winner of the 2025 award! 7:00 p.m. EDT. Attend in person at the Gailliot Center at Carlow University (5th Floor University Commons) or register for the Zoom livestream: https://dobler2025.eventbrite.com Free and open to the public. Reception and book signing after the reading. Hope to see you there!

Address

Pittsburgh, PA
15213

Telephone

+14125786346

Website

https://www.carlow.edu/about/madwomen-in-the-attic/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Madwomen in the Attic posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to The Madwomen in the Attic:

Featured

The TBCK Foundation

Want your organization to be the top-listed Non Profit Organization in Pittsburgh?