FROM THE RAW TO THE WRITTEN
January / February 2022
JOURNALING WORKSHOP PART II
This workshop is “part two” of my journaling workshop. Participants will collect their entries and return to them with an eye towards revision. Are they seeds or overgrown gardens? What are they missing? What are they still afraid to say? How can an entry grow into an essay, or a poem, or a story? We will consider whether reaching the final line is a necessary myth, and how to pay homage to the fray inside the final stitch.
READING LIST
Kaveh Akbar: CALLING A WOLF A WOLF / Victoria Chang: DEAR MEMORY / Sarah Vap: WINTER / Lydia Davis: COLLECTED STORIES / Sarah Manguso: ONGOINGNESS
. . .
BEGINNING WITH THE IMPOSSIBLE
November / December 2021
In this five-week workshop we will begin — each week — with an impossible premise. We will write through the inconceivable, the ridiculous, the tragic, the miraculous. We will bend a nonsensical joke until it turns into a poem that becomes a prayer. We will write the ridiculous until it becomes a story that not only we believe in, but one that guide us. We will compose miracles until they become the ground we stand on.
This workshop is (as always) a multi-genre workshop. All forms are welcome (poetry, prose, hybrid, memoir, essay, flash, fragment, and everything in between).
Reading List
Charles Simic: THE WORLD DOESN’T END / Donald Antrim: THE HUNDRED BROTHERS / Donald Barthelme: 60 STORIES / Rachel Ingalls: MRS. CALIBAN / CA Conrad’s ECODEVIANCE: SOMATICS FOR A FUTURE WILDERNESS
. . .
WRITING & FAILURE: ON DISAPPOINTMENTS, SHAME, BEING LOST, AND MIRACLES
August 2021
In this workshop we will ruin everything. We will fall down the well, eat the poisonous berries, and take unforgivable risks. We will say things we never meant to say, destroy the livingroom, write the worst thing, break all the glass, and then pray for a miracle.
Have you ever thought to yourself I have no idea what I'm doing. Have you ever thought to yourself I cannot write this down. I cannot tell this story. This workshop will guide you into that dangerous territory, and beyond it.
Reading List
Cathy Park Hong’s MINOR FEELINGS: AN ASIAN AMERICAN RECKONING / Brian Blachfield’s PROXIES / Rachel Zucker’s SOUND MACHINE
I will be supplementing the reading list with additional handouts / links.
. . .
A DAILY JOURNALING WORKSHOP
June / July 2021
In this five-week workshop we will keep (and share) a daily journal. We will study the composition of the entry and its worth, the strangeness and beauty of raw material, and the relationship between confession and invention.
Note: entries can be dreams, grocery lists, notes towards a novel, letters to nobody, a list of current events, sobbings, pieces of poems, fictions or chicken scratch. Which is to say, this workshop is (as always) a multi-genre workshop. All forms are welcome (poetry, prose, hybrid, memoir, essay, flash, fragment, and everything in between).
Reading LisT
Jenny Offill’s WEATHER / Jenny Erpenbeck’s NOT A NOVEL, A MEMOIR IN PIECES / Daniil Kharms’ TODAY I WROTE NOTHING / Roland Barthes’ MOURNING DIARY
. . .
A DAILY JOURNALING WORKSHOP
April / May 2021
In this 5 week workshop we will keep (and share) a daily journal. We will study the composition of the entry and its worth, the strangeness and beauty of raw material, and the relationship between confession and invention.
Note: entries can be dreams, grocery lists, notes towards a novel, letters to nobody, a list of current events, sobbings, pieces of poems, fictions or chicken scratch. Which is to say, this workshop is (as always) a multi-genre workshop. All forms are welcome (poetry, prose, hybrid, memoir, essay, flash, fragment, and everything in between).
READING LIST
Edward Carey's THE SWALLOWED MAN / Jenny Offill's DEPT. OF SPECULATION / Suzanne Buffam's THE PILLOW BOOK / Rachel Zucker's SOUND MACHINE / Sherman Alexie's ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN
. . .
FROM THE RAW TO THE WRITTEN
March 2022
JOURNALING WORKSHOP PART II
This workshop is “part two” of my journaling workshop. Participants will collect their entries and return to them with an eye towards revision. Are they seeds or overgrown gardens? What are they missing? What are they still afraid to say? How can an entry grow into an essay, or a poem, or a story? We will consider whether reaching the final line is a necessary myth, and how to pay homage to the fray inside the final stitch.
READING LIST
Sarah Manguso's ONGOINGNESS / Mary Ruefle's MADNESS, RACK, AND HONEY / Alexander Chee's HOW TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL / Ander Monson's LETTER TO A FUTURE LOVER (Marginalia, Errata, Secrets, Inscriptions, and Other Ephemera Found in Libraries) / Sarah Vap's WINTER: EFFULGENCES AND DEVOTIONS
. . .
ESCAPE & CAPTIVITY
January/February 2021
In this workshop we will consider how language can function as a wormhole, a portal, a trapdoor, a shelter, a perfect escape. Weekly reading and writing exercises will guide you through the cracks in your stories, and the holes in your circumstance. Out of words, we will learn how to build new spaces to live inside, without forgetting to heal, and mourn, and pay homage to the old. This workshop is a multi-genre workshop. All forms are welcome (poetry, prose, hybrid, memoir, essay, flash, and fragment).
READING LIST
To keep us company we will read Joyelle McSweeney’s Toxicon and Arachne, Lisa Olstein’s Pain Studies, Anne Carson’s Float, and Kate Zambreno’s Drifts.
. . .