Do you have a story inside you that you’ve never fully gotten out? Are you stuck in a rut in life or love? Journaling and writing it all out is a proven form of therapeutic movement! Autumn is the time for fresh starts. Why not give yourself the gift of a creative journey? Our dear friend Rachel Kann is an award-winning poet, performer, ceremonialist, teaching artist and ordained Kohenet – and she’s teaching a really special writing course online that we recommend – and this is not an ad!
Rachel’s creative expression journeys are not just for all writers, they are for all humans. This is about starting where you are and exploring your interior landscape. It’s for all people with all levels of experience and writing backgrounds. This is an opportunity to get to know yourself better. How you feel about things, where memories live inside of your body, what symbols you use to navigate your own life experience. It’s an opportunity to let yourself be deeply inspired, by poetry from some of the greats, by your fellow workshop participants, and by yourself, most importantly. It’s an opportunity to slow down, find some presence and stillness, and express yourself from that place.
Details from Rachel;
This workshop will be a culmination of all the dreams, possibilities and discoveries I have made teaching writing workshops online over the last 12 years, and particularly over zoom since the start of the pandemic. It will combine the two elements of writing workshops that you have requested most often into one format: in-depth exploration and generative creativity.
This workshop will run 12 weeks, from Monday, October 4th to Monday, December 20th, 6:30-8:30 PM PT / 9:30-11:30 PM ET. The consistency of a longer journey, 12 weeks, allows you to build a communal experience of expression. You will be able to see your progress.
The first hour of class will be devoted to workshopping writing by participants in an in-depth fashion. The writing is shared on the zoom screen, and we all learn so much together by approaching each word, each punctuation mark, each line break and stanza break, with so much TLC. Each participant will have at least one opportunity to have their writing workshopped in this fashion, if they so choose. (Please note, you are invited, rather than obligated, to workshop in this way. It is not required.)
The second hour of class will be devoted to generative creativity. (A true Maker Monday experience!) We will read poems by some of the all-time greats (like Warsan Shire, Hafiz, Mary Oliver, and many more…) for inspiration, and then dive into a prompt-based generative creativity exercise. An opportunity to create a new piece each and every week. This hour of class will be recorded and available for you to view for one week after each session, in case you are ever unable to attend.
The 12-week timespan and new format allows us to include a larger cohort, which means a robust and diverse community! With that said, space is limited: this workshop is first come/first served.
It is open to all writers at all levels and stages of experience. It is also open to creatives working in any genre or medium. You could certainly use the prompt-based journeys to create a painting, for example, and you could certainly use your workshop time to share your art, if you prefer.
If you feel called to embark on this sort of journey, please be in touch to receive more information and/or reserve your space.
This workshop will be $550 for the entire 12 week series.
If you are in a position to make a larger financial contribution to support another writer or artist of lesser means, please reach out.
Need-based scholarships are available. Be in touch.
About your Workshop Facilitator: Rachel Kann is the 2021 Writer-in-Residence for Brandeis Collegiate Institute. She’s featured in XLA Poets (HINCHAS Press.) She was the 2020 New England Jewish Poetry Festival’s Featured Poet, a 2020 Cosmic Sister “Women of The Psychedelic Renaissance” awardee for her poetry presentation at the 2020 Spirit Plant Medicine Conference, and a 2019 WORD: Bruce Geller Memorial Prize recipient for her latest poetry collection, How to Bless the New Moon, from Ben Yehuda Press. She is a poet, performer, ceremonialist, teaching artist and ordained Kohenet. Rachel was a 2019 Inquiry Fellow through American Jewish University’s Institute for Jewish Creativity and was a 2017 Asylum Arts Reciprocity Fellow and the 2017 Outstanding Instructor of the Year at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.
