Book me for a speaking engagement or workshop.
WORKSHOPS, READINGS, & CRAFT CLASSES
Arriel is available for keynotes, readings, craft talks, and multi-genre workshops for all ages, virtually and in person. Her experience ranges from Girls Write Now workshops with teens to Sarah Lawrence Writer’s Institute workshops with adults.
SCHOOL VISITS
With more than five years of education experience, Arriel is excited to chat with students about her author journey and Under the Neon Lights using interactive elements, prompts, and more to find connections between students that they may not often see.
PANELS & CONVERSATIONS
Need a conversation partner or moderator for your community or literary conversation? Arriel is the perfect fit for conversations about community building, romance, and more. You might have seen her chatting it up with Tia Williams, Leah Johnson, Kristina Forest, and many other authors.
Author Journey Presentation
This all-encompassing presentation includes a brief journey through Arriel’s writing life—from her experience at her high school newspaper and within higher education—to the inspiration for Under the Neon Lights with a brief performance of an excerpt and a mini-video of the roller skating culture she focuses on in the novel. Once concluded, Arriel allows 15 minutes for a Q&A.
The Making of Under the Neon Lights
This presentation brings students into the Under the Neon Lights themes, delving into Black roller skating culture, community building, gentrification, the Civil Rights Movement, and the process of writing a novel-in-verse. Once concluded, Arriel allows 10-15 minutes for a Q&A.
Your choice of any of the youth workshop offerings below
If you’d like your students to write alongside an author, choose one of the youth workshop offerings below.
Create Your Own
Does your school have a specific need? Reach out using the contact form below with your ask!
School Visit Options:
Writing the Places that Save Us
Sometimes, the places we love are the spaces that allow us to create community. Sometimes, the places we love are the spaces keeping us alive. This generative workshop will allow writers to explore the definitions of home and community, and then use prompts to write their own piece that praises the places they love.
Getting to the Heart of the Story
What does it mean to write honestly, and what does truth look like in creative writing? Through generative prompts and examining the honesty of short stories, essays, and poems, we’ll discover how to let the writing guide us to the truth. In this workshop, we'll read contemporary and classic authors to learn how to make our fiction and nonfiction real–and most of all, get to the heart of what we love.
Erasure Poetry as Resistance
This workshop will teach writers how to create erasure poetry and how to confront historical/political texts using different erasure methods. We will ask: what is being said? How is it being said? How did the poet create something new? We will discuss the different methods of erasure — such as whiting out, blacking out, highlighting — and then create our own erasures, with participants choosing from a variety of provided texts.
Youth Workshop Offerings:
Getting to the Heart of the Story, Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute (register now!)
Empowering Your YA Protagonist, Lasell University/Solstice MFA
How to Write a Query Letter and Find an Agent
Poetry As Storytelling: A Generative 5-Week Class
Poetry As Storytelling: A Weekend Intensive
Come Celebrate With Me: On Adding Joy to Your Work
Poem Like You Mean It: A Generative 5-Week Poetry Class
Erasure Poetry as Resistance
Author 101: How to Find a Literary Agent
Author 101: The Journey to a Book Deal
Worlds Within Us, YANovCon 2026
North Texas Teen Book Festival 2026
Young, Black, and in Love, Bronx Book Festival
Growing Up and Moving On, Brooklyn Book Festival
The Secrets of Successful Author Interviews, Electric Literature
Big Ideas: What Control Do We Actually Have? - A Conversation with Nicola Yoon and Danielle Evans, The Loft Literary Center (moderator)