Workshop descriptions (a small sample)
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Thin and Thick
This 5-step process, invites us to write from the thin place of silence into the thickness of words. From formless to form. We start in silence. We land in words. Technical tuning for this one emphasizes autobiographical vignettes. |
BREAK
This workshop is an experiment with the theme and practice of "breaking." Breaking habits, breaking bread, breaking in or out...or up...or through. How do we respond when something breaks, whether it's the morning sun, a news story, a favorite object, a system...a loved one..? How do we respond when we play with conscious forms of breaking?
The homework for this one is less about writing and more about documenting a prompted experience. Doing, noticing, note-taking. Gatherings will be mostly different forms of guided reflection and sharing.
FACE
This writing circle explores the many faces of life. What does it mean to come face to face with someone or something? What are we facing right now? Who might we need to face? With a focus on descriptive writing, theme, and beauty tuning, we will respond to stream-writing prompts, guided sharing, and feedback protocols. Then, we will hone and revise one final piece for a formal reading in the last week (with sipping and snacking).
No writing experience necessary.
tremory: exploring the tremors of truth and memory
-a workshop with carol panaro-smith and mary kay zeeb
we will revisit bits of our personal histories, with a sense of freedom from the already thin lines between fiction and nonfiction. what lies inside the living memory? where is the truth in looking, creating, letting go?
no previous writing or visual art experience required.
"Backstitch"
Join us in this exploration of self, life, and new beginnings. With a dedication to journaling, we will work with writing, mixed-medias, and sharing in a navigation of the unforeseen life.
Co-facilitated by Gina DeGideo, Fernando Villavicencio, and Mary Kay Zeeb.
contrast
This writing circle is designed to explore contrast, in both content and form. Through guided protocols, we will survey and write about moments in our lives when differences seemed to glow with subtle meaning. Then, each of us will choose one experience to focus on for this theme, incorporating contrasting technical elements. We will experiment with the juxtaposition of sensory impression, action, and varied genre techniques. This workshop is way to be curious about the value of contrast that blooms from or inhabits the same space. What happens when we set out to explore contrasting entities in close proximity?
each a room
Each of us will choose one room in our lives. Each of us will spend one hour a week inside this room, in silence, during which we will take one photo and write one brief piece. Each week, we will share the photo and the writing with each other, using guided protocols for feedback and discussion.
Co-facilitated by Carol Panaro-Smith and Mary Kay Zeeb.
To Whom It May Concern
-a writing workshop, co-facilitated by Lynda Levy and Mary Kay Zeeb
This circle explores letter-writing as an art form. The workshop is designed to locate relevant recipients, meaningful content, and new freedoms in our relationships. We will graph, stream-write, and compose, with a technical emphasis on voice and audience.
Come write a letter. To yourself or someone else. Or to something. A love letter, a call to action, a letter of forgiveness, a thank you, a confession…anything.
honesty This writing circle, explores self-literacy, poetry, and our distinct relationships with the outside world. |
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MONOLOGUE, OMNI-LOGUE
This course emphasizes the power of individual story and its relationship to larger community. Participants will write their own stories, according to a guided format that is similar to theatrical monologue writing. All of the stories are aligned with the same theme, chosen by the class upon completion of day one's exercises. Mid-course, writers will thread their stories together with a shared purpose and plan a public performance of their work. The class process will move from personal to socio-political. Private story of self becomes public story as service.
(image from artist betsy bretharte)
breath, word, action
This writing process connects the body's genius with the skin of words. This workshop creates a hollow space from which we can listen, write, and take action in our daily lives. For the first gathering, please bring a book that holds importance for you.
image by artist Betsy BretHarte
THOSE 100 PHONE CALLS
My former collaborator, Ryan, and I, once decided that most of us will experience approximately 100 important phone conversations in our lives: Good news, bad news, births, deaths, test results, proposals, break-ups, firings, hirings, threats, rescue attempts, I miss you's, Where are you's?, first times, last times...
This workshop guides you to survey your history with important phone calls, choose one, and then write about it in eight specific steps.
One Fall
This writing seminar invites you to write about one fall in your life. Any fall. A fall into love. Or out of it. A fall from grace. Your first skinned knee. A free-fall from a plane in Costa Rica. The fall out. A perfect moment in October. The thing that fell through the cracks. That water fall, at the end of a long hike. A gradual fall into depression. The day you saw the sky falling. Too many strands of your hair falling onto the bathroom tile. That time you tried to break her fall. Snow falling all over your hometown. A descending musical scale that took your breath away. That ripe plum in the grass. Any fall. Yours. Someone else's. The world's. One fall.
This workshop guides you to survey your fall history, choose a fall, write about it in four specific steps, revise, edit, and share it .
"There is visible labor and there is invisible labor."
-Victor Hugo
Come write one of your labor stories. This workshop will invite you to reflect on your personal labor history. Any kind of labor. The labor before the birth. Manual labor. Artistic labor. Labors of love. Laboring a point. Labor disputes. Labor, paid and unpaid, noticed and unnoticed, physical and metaphysical. Explore your life labors. Wonder about their sustainability. What have your labors produced? How has your experience with labor affected you or this world? Come explore your relationship with labor, whether it is about building a kitchen table for your grandmother or training your breath.
Writing About Her
It’s time. Time to write about her. Your grandmother, your mother, your sister, your daughter, your friend, your lover. Any “her” in your life. Your childhood horse. The motorcycle in your driveway. A shirt you named when you were seven. Your favorite teacher. The twin you wish you had. An old part of you. Someone you want to become. A leader you admire. Or detest. The desert. The sea. It’s just time. Time to write about her.
I call this work Portrait-Narrative. It’s an 11-step writing process, including graphing, stream-writing, simple meditation technique, drafting, and revision.
image by artist Betsy BretHarte
"The World Needs to Know Your Story:
Telling Our Recovery Stories With Gravity, Levity, and Confidence"
This writing circle invites people to expand cultural views on recovery. All of us have recovered from something, will recover from something, or are currently recovering from something, whether it is the loss of a loved one, a divorce, an illness, an addiction, an injury, a job change, a shift in identity, or one of a million other possibilities. This process is built around the belief that sharing a recovery story is a form of social activism. Each story, if shared in community, can offer positive power. Each story deserves to be heard. And each story holds a natural dignity and beauty inside of it. This class sets out to provide the technical writing and presentational skills to support shared stories of recovery.
The prewriting process consists of graphing, reflective stream-writing, and guided group sharing of personal stories. Then, we will walk through a step-by-step writing process called "Lotus Writing," meant to highlight each story's true form, clarity, and aesthetic value.
"The World Needs to Know Your Story:
Telling Our Recovery Stories With Gravity, Levity, and Confidence"
This writing circle invites people to expand cultural views on recovery. All of us have recovered from something, will recover from something, or are currently recovering from something, whether it is the loss of a loved one, a divorce, an illness, an addiction, an injury, a job change, a shift in identity, or one of a million other possibilities. This process is built around the belief that sharing a recovery story is a form of social activism. Each story, if shared in community, can offer positive power. Each story deserves to be heard. And each story holds a natural dignity and beauty inside of it. This class sets out to provide the technical writing and presentational skills to support shared stories of recovery.
The prewriting process consists of graphing, reflective stream-writing, and guided group sharing of personal stories. Then, we will walk through a step-by-step writing process called "Lotus Writing," meant to highlight each story's true form, clarity, and aesthetic value.
image by artist Betsy BretHarte
The Art of Direct Experience
This seven-week writing course emphasizes narrative and descriptive writing strategies. It is an extension of the shorter "Alive and Noticing" workshops, with more formal attention to finished written work. Most homework is action-centered, inviting students to perform particular actions, and then describe the experiences in writing. This homework may involve ordinary daily tasks, like doing the dishes or hanging wet laundry on the line. And sometimes the actions are less ordinary (e.g. wake up at dawn, sing to a loved one, chew one's food twice as long, visit a local spot, stare in the mirror for thirty minutes, etc). Action homework creates a foundation for both content and instruction on writing skills.
Students will share work, develop writing skills, compose, workshop, revise, and engage in class discussions about relevant questions regarding the value of "heightened daily living,"
By the end of this course, students will have a portfolio of five to six short descriptive pieces, and one fully developed personal narrative to feature in a reading on the final day of class.
Green
This facilitation explores green as a metaphor for first times: your first crush, first love, first broken heart, that first day on the job, the first time you finally
said no...or yes…your first encounter with art, injustice, fear, freedom…your first experience with anything. The technical writing process consists of graphing, stream-writing, and four specific steps that emphasize descriptive writing skills, narrative voice, and aesthetic value.