#21 July 2026
hot literary summer is on!
Hello, my lovely subscribers, especially the new paying and donating members and supporters! I couldn’t continue without you.
This hot month, most of the big institutions are on summer break, but there are plenty of courses, workshops, and readings happening. Make the most of the summer and up your writing skills, while staying cool.
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Events with * were added after initial publication and/or were corrected. So check the Substack post after you receive the email for the latest version.
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Your newsletter perpetuator, Bettina
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Table of Contents: Calls for Classifieds, Nifty Stuff, Repeating Events, Events, Classes
☀️ Call for Classifieds entries: Are you a Berlin-based professional writing coach, editor and/or something else?
After receiving enough inquiries from writers, I am compiling a listing of Berlin-based professional writing services to add to this newsletter. I know many of you lovely writers also work as editors, book and writing coaches, and in many other roles. If you’d like to have your information added to my post, please fill out this Form!
Let’s share the literary love that thrives in Berlin and help out the hustling writers who offer paid services. ☀️
* Update:Thanks to everyone for reaching out! I have made a Form for this next project to gather the information. If you’ve already contacted me, you don’t have to redo unless you love doing forms :)
Nifty Stuff
—Job-Board: Kreativ-City
Did you know there’s a job board for creatives, and if you search by “Literature/Media” you might find something interesting? You can also make a profile for yourself to apply and/or promote your work. Hmmm, I should get on that too. Regarding writing opportunities, experience has shown me that it’s a good idea to be clear about the difference between volunteer and paid work. Every person needs to know where they are in their careers and how much time they can dedicate to someone else’s project and/or building a resume/CV. Also, it can be confusing as the German word Volontariat, often is paid, but at a lower rate than a full-time job, and for a limited time.
—Non-Lit Tip: One of my favorite places to sit and write, where you can also find a great empanada in a Viennese-café style setting, is Kaffeehaus Mila
📍Grolmanstraße 40, 10623 Berlin. And on the weekends, they have great Latin music concerts!
Repeating Events
—Writing Club: DNA Club Creative Writing and Wine
🗓 Wednesday, 1 July, 19:30-21:30📍DNA. ART HOUSE Wrangelstraße 25 10997 Berlin.
Our Creative Writing & Wine evenings are open to everyone - whether you are just discovering your voice or have been writing for years. No pressure, just presence. Guided by Daniela Dair, you will be invited into the space with gentle, uplifting prompts and the freedom to create, share, or simply listen. 💶 €17,17. They have other writing-related events, so check them out.
—Meetup: Re(a)d Editing (back at Vagabund for one month!)
🗓 Monday, July 13th, 19:00-22:00📍Vagabund Brauerei Kesselhaus, Oudenarder Str. 16-20, 13347 Berlin
Most events for writers are focused around creation or performance. Much comes between this, yet we do not always hold each other through that phase. This is a meetup on the 2nd Monday of every month by the Re(a)d Wedding Kollektiv, built for all of your “in between” works. Join us for a free, open-format meetup, whether you want independent or collaborative time. Donations welcome, with zines for sale as well. 💶 free, buy a drink
—Workshop: Living Philosophy: a reflective writing club
🗓 Sundays: 21, 28 June, 11:00-12:00📍11 Ohmstr, 10179 Berlin
Sunday, 5 July, 11:00 - 12:00 / Sunday, 12 July, 11:00 - 12:00 / Sunday, 19 July, 11:00 - 12:00, Sunday, 26 July, 11:00 - 12:00
It’s a deep human need to make sense of our experience and tell our stories. And damn, does the world need new stories. We start with a somatic practice to get out of our heads and into our bodies. Then we go into two rounds of solo writing, guided by a weekly theme – or you’re welcome to bring your own project! Here’s a taste.
💶 Urban Sports Club check-in or €16
—Panel: "Sunday Salons"
🗓 Sundays from 5 July to 16 August, 18:00-19:00📍Another Country Bookshop, Riemannstraße 7, 10961 Berlin-Bezirk Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
The Sunday Salon series highlights a different local artist each week, who will talk a bit about their practice before telling us what they're working on, their inspirations for the project, and any obstacles they're experiencing along the way. The concept behind the project is to demystify the artistic process, foster new connections, tap into new inspiration, and break down creative blocks. 💶 Donation-based (suggested donation €5-€10). Register at elizalevinson@gmail.com
—Meetup: Creative Fruits Mornings
🗓 Saturday, 25 July, 11:30 - 13:00📍The Hoxton, Charlottenburg, Meinekestraße 18-19, 10719 Berlin. Ticket includes teas and fruits. 💶 €8
Hit reset on the last Saturday of every month with Creative Fruits Mornings x The Hoxton! Join us for a monthly creative writing kickstart and networking support session for writers hosted by Demi Anter. Open to all kinds of writers/artists, invigorate your routine with writing sprints and networking opportunities. All creatively curious people are welcome (not only writers).
Events
—Meetup: July Berlin Writers’ Workshop Picnic at Tempelhofer Feld
🗓 Wednesday, July 1, 19:00-22:00 📍Tempelhofer Feld (map)
A free monthly gathering for writers and readers 💶 free
—Happy Hour: Berlin Screenwriters Network Happy Hour
Come join us for a fun evening of networking and mingling with fellow screenwriters.
🗓 Wednesday, July 1, 19:30-22:00📍Prater Beer Garden, Kastanienallee 7-9, 10435 Berlin 💶 free
—Conversation: Fwd: Re: the digital with Alexander Galloway and Yuk Hui
🗓 Thursday, 2 July, 19:30📍diffrakt | zentrum für theoretische peripherie e. V.
Crellestraße 22, 10827 Berlin
It’s been almost eight years since Alexander Galloway and Yuk Hui came together at diffrakt to discuss a broad variety of questions concerning the nature of the analogue and the digital. Yet this evening will (most likely) not be a reenactment. As the world has changed in the meantime, Alex and Yuk will return for a reassessment. Has the rapid mainstreaming of so-called AI in its various forms over the past few years changed the relations between the analogue and the digital? Has it changed our conception of what is called thinking, both in analytic and synthetic modes? What are AI’s social and technological axioms, whether acknowledged or unacknowledged, and how do they influence contemporary socio-technics? 💶 free
—Bar Talk: The Intelligence AI Can’t Copy Finding the Human Edge in the AI Era
🗓 Monday, 6 July. Doors 18:30 → Talk 19:00→ Q&A → Mingle 📍Alter Roter Löwe, Richardstr. 31-32, 12043 Berlin.
Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence. But there is another intelligence that actually determines whether AI will accelerate us or destroy us. 💶 €12,90 red.-€24,90 reg. (Part of my ongoing features around AI activism).
—Book Conversation: Samuel Clowes Huneke in Conversation w/ Alexander Wells
🗓 Thursday, 9 July, 20:00📍Curious Fox Books, Lausitzer Platz 17, 10997, Kreuzberg
Join us for Samuel Clowes Huneke, author of "I Will Not Abandon You: Queer Women in Nazi Germany," in conversation with Alexander Wells. 💶 ?
—Performance, Spoken Word, Live Music, Art: Parallel/Play — Word/Play Between the Word and the Note
🗓 Saturday, 11 July, 19:30-22:00📍Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin
Word/Play brings a word artist, a visual artist, and a musician into the same space for one evening - where language, image, and sound discover each other in real time. The programme moves from a carefully developed trio work to a first-meeting improvisation, closing with an open invitation for the audience to respond.
💶 presale: €10-15 / at the door: €12
—Workshop: Walking & Writing, 1-Day Creative Writing Workshop at The Hoxton
🗓 Sunday, 12 July, 13:00-17:00📍The Hoxton, Meinekestraße 18-19, 10719 Berlin
As writers, we can forage for stories, just as others forage for sustenance. On this creative foraging walk through Berlin, we will slow down, look, touch, and listen. Led by writer Demi Anter, this workshop will help us practice the art of paying attention and learn new ways to write the city blocks we stroll down every day. Ages 16+
💶 €25 - €30 The workshop consists of a 1.5-hour walk. Please contact the facilitator for any accessibility requirements or questions.
—Workshop: poetry with sandee | critique sessions
🗓 Tuesday, 14 July, 19:30–21:30📍Erkstrasse 14, 12043 Berlin (Back-house Left, Ground-floor)
In a session, you'll get: a chance to receive feedback from other poets, widening your audience; a choice in what we focus on; written feedback from at least the facilitator; insights from group discussion; some of your poem's specific/niggly Qs asked. Open to all writers with a poem draft that they’d like critical feedback on. It is highly advisable to print your poem before the workshop so you can receive written feedback from others. The workshops are held at a barrier-free private address, where some snacks and refreshments will be provided.
—Event, Reading: TURN (W)HERE: Book Launch & Conversation with Chet’la Sebree
🗓 Wednesday, July 15, 19:00-21:00📍Audre-Lorde-Straße 78, 10997 Berlin
Join us for a reading and conversation with Chet’la Sebree, moderated by Berlin Writers’ Workshop co-director Tracy Fuad. Drinks and snacks will be available by donation, and we’ll have t-shirts for sale! Chet’la’s debut essay collection, Turn (W)here: A Geography of Home, seamlessly weaves memoir with history and cultural criticism to contemplate movement, home, inheritance, and belonging. Spanning continents, geographies, and states of mind, Sebree lights a pathway for the wanderer, the seeker—anyone propelled into the unknown by the desire for a place to truly belong. 💶
—Book Launch & Readings: Berlin 2026: A Space Odyssey
🗓 Thursday, 16 July, 19:00-22:00📍Spike Berlin, Goebenstr. 22, 10783 Berlin
The evening celebrates the launch of Susan Finlay’s new novel, The Ultraviolet Catastrophe (Zero Books), which is set among Berlin’s eighty-plus outer-space start-ups, and features a cast of mad scientists, Astro-Marxists, a neurorobotic AI hivemind, an extinction anxiety addict, the victims of an interrelated crypto-currency gaming scam, and a seemingly endless succession of ravers and gamers in search of the ultimate hallucinogenic, carcinogenic, neu-space-age high... Featuring readings and performances from Zack Darsee, Tracy Fuad, Nina Hanz, Gabriella Hirst, An Paenhuysen, and Hilary White on themes of distance, technology, ecology, futurism, and human belonging. 💶 free
—Book Launch: The Red Mouth by Sheila Armstrong
🗓 Thursday, 23 July, Doors at 19:30, 20:00📍Curious Fox Books, Lausitzer Platz 17, 10997, Berlin-Kreuzberg
”Please join us on Thursday, 23rd July, for a reading and discussion to celebrate the launch of The Red Mouth by Sheila Armstrong. All welcome. 💶 Free entry.
About the book: When a dog finds a strange, alien antler in a restored bog, its owner is drawn back to the rich peat to keep searching…”
—Meetup: Hurry, 591 BC –2007: The Musical
🗓 Friday, 24 July, 20:00-22:30📍Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin
A team of writers, musicians, and artists will attempt to make a musical in 10 hours flat. The event is an investigation into the plausibility of taking Hurry, 591 BC – 2007, a title from the Webster’s Timeline Histories series, as subject matter and the only informational source for a creative endeavor. 💶 €8 / €5 for unwaged and students
—Meetup: Writing Photography: Berlin Edition - Writing Workshop
🗓 Saturday, 25 July, 11:30 - 13:00📍Shakespeare & Sons, Warschauer Straße 74, 10243 Berlin.
Please note: we will not be making new photographs in this workshop. Suitable for all experience levels/genres. Artists and photographers welcome. Ages 16+. Photography is a powerful tool for documenting our world, collecting experiences, cementing memory. Artist and writer Demi Anter leads this in-person session exploring how to write from photographs, how to use photography in the writing process, and how to weave images/writing to document “Place.”
💶 €25 (Early Bird) €30
—Workshop: Submissions Without the Spiral
🗓 Tuesday, 28 July, 19:00-21:00📍Another Country Bookshop, Riemannstraße 7, 10961 Berlin
Learn how to get your fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction published in journals, magazines, and anthologies without losing your soul. We'll cover practical techniques and tools for finding the right outlets for your creative writing. All participants may also submit a work sample for a personalized list of suggested publications. 💶 €18
—Book launch: after war by Dženana Vucic
🗓 Thursday, 30 July, 19:30–22:00📍Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin
The Berlin launch of Dženana Vucic’s debut poetry collection, after war. With readings from the poet and a conversation moderated by Alexander Wells. 💶 free
Unfurling from the Bosnian war and its traumas, Dženana Vucic’s after war is a searing examination of identity and un/belonging; language and its elisions; history and how we remember it, and violence and how we are implicated in it.
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Classes ☀️
Creative Writing I (In-Person) with Gurmeet Singh
Start date: 1 July
End date: August 18th, 2026
Wednesdays, 19:00-21:00
Location: Neukölln
💶 Tuition: €400
Workshop: “Experiments in Nonfiction: Archive, Image, Memory”
🗓 Wednesdays from 1 July - 12 August, 19:30-21:30 pm
📍Another Country Bookshop, Riemannstraße 7, 10961 Berlin-Bezirk Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
This multimedia class is for writers at all levels and artists of all disciplines. From Joan Didion to the essay-film, we'll test the limits of truth in storytelling through experiments in memoir, literary essay, poetry, collage, video, and cross-genre writing.
💶 fee: sliding scale (drop in for €15-25/class or the whole six weeks for €100-150)
Workshop: Writing The Feature Film: How to Structure Your Next Screenplay
🗓 Saturday, 4 July, 10:30-13:30 + Sunday, 5 July, 10:30-13:30
📍Nil Filmhaus, Wallstr. 35, 10179 Berlin
“Writing The Feature Film” is a weekend workshop designed to give participants the roadmap they need to start on their first or next feature film screenplay. American screenwriter Will Buckingham will cover the basics of screenwriting, go in-depth on three act-structure, and examine case studies from award-winning screenplays. Participants will then start to build a structure for their own feature film ideas, which will be workshopped in class. Finally, participants will write the opening scene of their screenplay — meaning it’s too late to turn back. Register kontakt@nilfilmhaus.com
💶 €120
Creative Writing I Weekend Intensive
Location: Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin
Instructor: Rebekah Smith
Saturdays, July 4th & 11th
11:00 — 16:00 with a lunch break
💶 Tuition: €175
—Workshop: Writing the City with Çağla Arıbal
🗓 Tuesday, July 14 - Tuesday, September 1, 19:00-21:00
📍Leipziger Straße Mitte, Berlin
💶 Tuition for this 8-week course is €350, and includes personal feedback on your work. Many participants attend using professional development or Weiterbildung funds provided by their employer or institution. If cost is a barrier, we also offer a limited number of need-based, sliding-scale scholarships.
Berlin is a city of layers, a metaphor for fragmented selves, absence, and irony. In this workshop, you’ll learn to “write Berlin into being” by adopting cinematic “ways of seeing” and translating them into storytelling: directing narrative buildup, capturing sensory detail, and using place as a lens for your own patterns. Through close readings and generative exercises, all levels leave with refreshed writing habits and a revised piece.
—Workshop: when nothing means something
🗓 Monday, 20 July, 18:00–20:30; Tuesday, 21 July, 18:00–20:30; Wednesday, 22 July, 18:00–20:30; Thursday, 23 July, 18:00–20:30📍Holzmarktstrasse 19-23, 10243 Berlin 90mil is wheelchair accessible.
We use a sliding scale to make courses as affordable as possible. Lower end: You don’t have a stable income. Mid-range: You have a less stable financial situation and are more selective about where you spend your money. Higher end: You experience relative financial stability. Solidarity spot: You’re experiencing financial precarity and wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford to come to a workshop. 💶 €70 – €160 full course.
Weekend Poetry Intensive with Zack Darsee
Saturday & Sunday, 14:00-16:30
July 18th & 19th, 2026
Instructor: Zack Darsee
Location: Rathaus Neukölln
💶 Tuition: €120
Berlin Writers’ Workshop - they also have online courses
The Reader - they also have online courses
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