Community poet and KU professor Megan Kaminski will lead a Ride and Write workshop in partnership with the Lawrence Public Library and Lawrence Transit.
The workshop, limited to 25 attendees, is designed to help participants generate work for submission to the Lawrence Transit Poet Laureate program.
Since 2023, Kaminski has led the project, where she reviews poetry submissions from Lawrence residents and selects a handful to be featured on Lawrence Transit’s electric buses for an entire year. The authors are then dubbed poet laureates of different bus routes. See here for a list of 2025’s poet laureates and to read their submissions.
In preparation for the 2026 program, Kaminski will lead a generative workshop from 5:15 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 29. Registration is required and limited. Interested parties can sign up through the event page on the library’s website.
Attendees will meet in the central station lobby and ride along Route 8 to “Find inspiration together in the sights, sounds, and connections we make as we traverse the city to our destination,” according to the event page. The group will land at the Cedar and Sage Cafe on Haskell Indian Nations University’s campus, where they will respond to writing prompts and share their work with other attendees.
Workshop participants, as well as Lawrence residents of all ages, will be encouraged to submit their work for consideration to the Poet Laureate program. This year’s theme is “Routes to Belonging.” Writers are encouraged to “explore how we create and discover belonging through the pathways we travel — both literal and metaphorical,” according to the event page.
“When we invite poetry onto our buses and into our daily commutes, we’re creating space for reflection and connection in a world that often rushes past the profound in the everyday,” Kaminski said in a newsletter from Lawrence Transit. “This program reminds us that our shared routes through the city are also shared stories — and that poetry helps us see our community with fresh eyes, recognizing the beauty and meaning in the simple act of traveling together toward home.”
Submissions for the 2026 Lawrence Transit Poet Laureate Program are due Nov. 3. “Poems may be submitted in English or any language spoken in our community, with English translation if desired,” per the newsletter. Poems can be submitted via this Google Form.
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