Meeting Yourself with Words
Three Writing Workshops
“A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as s/he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things s/he would not have thought of if s/he had not started to say them. That is, s/he does not draw on a reservoir; instead, s/he engages in an activity that brings to him a whole succession of unforeseen stories, poems, essays….”
–William Stafford
Writing is for everyone—it is a most democratic enterprise.
The human mind is an unmappable frontier—no less than the cosmos itself—and the writer is the one best equipped to do the exploration. For anyone with access to the language, writing is a powerful tool for self-expression and communication—and for the art itself. For all the talk about what AI can do for us, it cannot replicate what we ourselves have access to, when we choose to write. The writer translates into words what bubbles up from the depths of one’s heart and soul and mind.
The Workshops
Each workshop begins with journaling and moves into prose and/or poetry. Each genre prioritizes a different skillset, and therefore each workshop will offer a different set of strategies. Poets are engaged with language that need not necessarily utilize narrative to grab the reader; storytellers have strategies whose purpose is to keep you reading; essayists have expertise showing how to make the mundane come alive.
“Poetry as the revelatory distillation of experience…For women…poetry is not a luxury…The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us—the poet—whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.”
–Audre Lorde
Journaling/Poetry
Journaling/Fiction (Storytelling)
Journaling/Creative Nonfiction/Memoir/ the Personal Essay
“Writing is egalitarian; it cuts across geographic, class, gender, & racial lines.”
–Natalie Goldberg