Workshop Descriptions: Break-Out 1(August 24h)
Café with Elizabeth
Elizabeth Marino Workshop Leader
Let's gather around our Zoom screens to share a cup of café, conversation, and conjure food imagery. Food involves all of our senses in community, so let us share a cup and conversation, exchange how we mark holidays and special occasions, or console each other. In this creative writing workshop, we will use our experiences around food as prompts to generate seeds for new poetry and short memoir.
(Break-out Session #1--August 24th ONLINE via Zoom)
Art to Start: Rooted
Apeksha Harsh Workshop Leader
If we can explore our world through the lens of creative arts, then art becomes the starting point to understand, connect & learn. This workshop aims to expand our awareness of identity and community through a series of engagements with visual art, historical documents & personal objects. The workshop hopes to open dialogue & create connections among its culturally diverse participants who will map their understanding of identity and community. Identity can be rooted in any metaphor and we become observers, witnesses, thinkers & storytellers. Note: The workshop requires participants to present a personal object - this could be an object of daily use / an object with family history / an object of personal significance / something you have created.
(Break-out Session #1--August 24th ONLINE via Zoom)
The Unlearning/Vamos a Olvidar
Vanessa Chica Ferreira Workshop Leader
This workshop is designed for writers of all levels hoping to work towards the unlearning of the negative messages and beliefs about their bodies that have been ingrained by family, media, and societal influences. Through the reading and discussion of evocative bilingual poems, memory recollection of the tías who commented on plates during meals, writing and photo prompts that confront and release harmful beliefs about their bodies, participants will create their own unlearning poem. Come share and experience the empowering effects of writing as activism!
(Break-out Session #1--August 24h ONLINE via Zoom)
Developing A Character: Creative Writing Workshop For Dialogue
Karen Cecilia Workshop Leader
This workshop will take you step-by-step through writing complex characters that can be used in any form of creative writing. It will focus on dialogue through the lens of playwriting. This workshop includes theory, writing exercises, and guides you to develop a new project or further one you have started. Let’s get writing!
(Break-out Session #1--August 24th ONLINE via Zoom)
Workshop Descriptions: Break-Out 2 (August 24th)
Naming Beyond Our Roots: Generating Writing from the Cultural Languages of Our Experiences
María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado Workshop Leader
In this dynamic workshop facilitated by the multilingual Boricua poet María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado, all writers at all levels are encouraged to generate writing from the cultural languages of their experiences. Did you or do you work, live, write, and/or study for any length of time in a different part of the U.S.? Did you or do you work, live, write, and/or study for any length of time outside of the U.S.? What about the soundscape of your neighborhoods now or in the past with neighbors who spoke a language not your own and who interacted with you? As long as you tap into your authentic experiences & stay in your own voice, you will generate wildly in this safe & brave online space.
(Break-out Session #2--August 24th ONLINE via Zoom)
Dive into Prose Poetry
Nancy Gonzalez St. Clair Workshop Leader
We’re often too close to our stories, making us feel constrained to narrative. This workshop breaks away from linear storytelling and explores the prose poem form. You will draft a brief paragraph about personal memory and experiment with defamiliarization tools to reveal surprising and fresh approaches to shake up your narrative. Prose is language in its plain form, which lends a prose poem its unique beauty. Writing a prose poem allows for greater freedom, with fewer constraints than other forms of poetry. Let’s write!
(Break-out Session #2--August 24th ONLINE via Zoom)
Soul Writing
Odilia Galván Rodríguez Workshop Leader
Have you ever gone through your files and read a poem or a passage of prose and asked yourself, Did I write this? I consider this type of writing “Soul Writing;” it comes from free and automatic writing when we write from the inspiration of our ancestors, spirits, or muses, as many call the voices that come through us. It is also wisdom writing. In this workshop, we will be guided through a series of free writing exercises on the broad topic of water. Join us and swim through the voices of your life.
(Break-out Session #2--August 24h ONLINE via Zoom)
An Unheralded Poetic Form: Jazz Vocalese
Catherine Lee Workshop Leader
“Vocalese” is a type of poetry written to closely follow the compositional trajectory of jazz music melodies and individual instrumental solos. We will listen to 3 well-known early examples from jazz luminaries: Eddie Jefferson’s “Moody’s Mood for Love,” Babs Gonzalez’ “Ornithology,” and Annie Ross’ “Twisted.” These poets crafted lyrics from single melodic lines. Then, we’ll explore another gifted, prolific writer/songster, Jon Hendricks, whose choral versions revolutionized this poetic form. We’ll read Jon’s lyrics slowly to better appreciate the knowledge and skill he displayed with this unheralded poetic form. Come listen to the sounds of jazz and write your own vocalese lyrics!
(Break-out Session #2--August 24th ONLINE via Zoom)