Jasmine Dreame Wagner
Writing & Editing Services
I’m Jasmine Wagner, a writer and teacher based in New York.
I help people find clarity, confidence, and creative voice through writing. Whether you’re beginning a memoir, shaping a poetry collection, or rediscovering your relationship to language, I offer grounded, intuitive support tailored to your process.
With a background in creative writing, editing, and performance, I bring over a decade of experience to my work with students. My teaching blends technique with self-discovery, encouraging depth over perfection and presence over pressure.
Coaching is available in-person and on Zoom.
Let’s write something true together.
♢
Creative Writing Teaching & Coaching Philosophy
As a creative writing instructor, I’ve taught fiction, poetry, multi-genre and nonfiction writing workshops at Marist University, Western Connecticut State University (WCSU) and at the University of Montana, Missoula, during their Wintersession. I recently led an online craft class for Poetry Foundation and have also enjoyed working one on one with artists on personal statements and grant proposals. I have several years of not-for-profit administration experience in the arts, writing grants to support artists.
As a creative writing editor, teacher, and coach, I’m committed to individually-tailored, student-centered instruction. I enjoy helping people become writers.
When I’ve taught at universities, I've run a craft-oriented classroom where students draft new works, collaborate in peer review and workshop circles, and read both classic works and contemporary pieces from literary journals. My students develop technique through the study of prosody, rhetoric, and structure, performing manuscript revisions informed by workshop feedback, self-reflection, and my own responses, which may include broad societal connections, reading suggestions, and developmental and line edits. I particularly enjoy working with students in an advisory role, tailoring my approach to each individual’s needs. By the end of each semester, my students graduate from our class with an enthusiasm for language and a commitment to reading and writing that continues beyond the classroom.
My commitment to diversity is evident in my student-centered approach and the readings I curate, which introduce students to writing forms and cultural legacies through readings and assignments that celebrate multiplicity. My classroom fosters an inclusive environment where creativity, collaboration, and mutual respect thrive, allowing individuals to share their unique perspectives. I guide my students in developing critical thinking practices, encouraging them to challenge conventions, experiment with new technologies, and work cooperatively, preparing them for careers where they shape the world.
For personal coaching, I help writers with:
ߦ developing and editing their creative work
ߦ writing personal statements and grant applications
I’m available for professional development, language consulting, and manuscript coaching.
♢
About Me
My collection of lyric essays, critical memoir, and poems, On a Clear Day, was deemed “a capacious book of traveller’s observations, cultural criticism, and quarter-life-crisis notes” at The New Yorker and “a radical cultural anthropology of the wild time we’re living in” at Hyperallergic.
My first book, Rings, won the Kelsey Street Press Firsts! Contest and was hailed as “powerfully exercised, technically masterful, and encyclopedic in its scope” in a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly.
As an arts journalist, I’ve covered visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and writers for publications including BOMB Magazine, Denver Quarterly, Hyperallergic, and Michigan Quarterly Review.
As an arts administrator and community member, I served as a mentor panelist for NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program and contributed an accessible arts grants application guide, “How to Apply for Grants and Residencies,” at Catapult after participating in juries for the Colorado Prize for Poetry, Brooklyn Arts Council, and Rhode Island State Council for the Arts.
A Connecticut Office of the Arts Fellow, I’m the recipient of two Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants along with residencies at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, The Lighthouse Works, Marble House Project, Millay Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), and The Wassaic Project, and a Harvard University Woodberry Poetry Room Creative Grant.
♢