A 2-DAY CREATIVE EXPERIENCE

October 24th and 25th from 12 to 5 p.m. ET

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Write new material, gain powerful revision techniques, practice creative resilience, connect with other writers, get real-time feedback, learn the art of creative networking, and celebrate the power of human stories.​

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• Learn to rekindle your childhood creativity with a Halloween-themed Multimedia Art Workshop by Vanja Kragulj

  • Make an OWL COLLAGE: For this workshop we will only need colored paper and pencil crayons so it’s very do-able from home. It also turns out super unique for every person. (See owl below.)

• Writing without expectations: Laura Esther Sciortino's generative and interactive workshop.

  • This hour-long workshop will include generative techniques and a brief optional sharing of about one paragraph per participant along with a round of responsive reflection, a method Laura first learned from the writer Rebecca Jamieson and which she's shared with many people since. Its emphasis is on naming aloud that which resonates for each person, either from the perspective of craft and/or content.  

• Manifest your creative life with Amy L. Bernstein's all-genre workshop.

  • This hour-long workshop will help artists of all abilities and backgrounds to dial into key forces and circumstances that have shaped their creative identities—and which may also be a source of creative blockages. We’ll focus on factors both within and beyond an artist’s control and, in particular, on how allies and adversaries operate in an artist’s life. We’ll explore ways to find more allies and sideline adversaries. Participants will take away a deeper commitment to their identity as writers and greater awareness of factors holding them back. ​

• Explore how to write for social good with Nancy Townsley

  • In this present moment, we as creatives—like so many others—might feel tempted to roll over and lay it all down. Yet we also hear a clarion call to action, to do what we can do, writing about our life experiences—our collective wisdom—for the common good, for the coming generations. In this workshop, author and career newspaper journalist Nancy Townsley will speak about the differences between facts and opinion, how blurring those lines has the potential to break democracy, and by extension, community. Using examples from her debut novel Sunshine Girl, which grapples with the consequential intersectionality of media and culture, and her work-in-progress novel about how our society might care for a coming tsunami of indigent elderly people near the end of their lives, she’ll nudge and challenge attendees to forge their own paths forward, writing for social good.

• Learn the art of revision in poetry with Alexis Ivy

  • This workshop poses a series of questions to your poem's draft: what is its purpose? Does it need rearranging? What voice does it have? Tone? Which tense? In the process of playing with the answers to these questions, the wrong choice might reveal the right one. Poems can always be fixed, instead of ditched.  A draft provides the opportunity for a poet to discover so much about direction and intention. Sometimes the solution is form — which can be ironically freeing, especially when the draft isn't working on the page. Traditional and nontraditional forms can be playful and add new layers to your poem. At times, creating a structure becomes revolutionary to the revision process. Obviously, structure isn't always the answer, but by translating your poem into form, you might find the solution that your poem needs to transcend to the final draft.  This workshop shares ways to interrogate your poem, and a variety of ways to pursue form fearlessly. ​

• Examine what we can Create in Community with Sonia Perna

  • “What can we create together through community?” Dive deep into this topic with generative exercises and reflections.​​

• Discussion: The art of audio: finding a narrator and narrating fiction, a talk with Suzanne Warfield

• Network, engage in workshops, and discuss art & technology​​​​

In light of all the cuts to the arts and in the literary world, we're dropping the price for the conference.

$140

 

*If you are struggling due to recent budget cuts to the arts and literary communities, and you cannot afford this price but would like to attend as a volunteer, email Jen at info@unleashcreatives.com

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