Memoir w/Kathy

The workshop began with the following brainstorming exercise:

Next, we read and discussed an essay called “Soundtrack” by Lisa Groen Braner.

Writing Exercise #1:

Tell the story of your life using the same form as “Soundtrack.” Remember to focus on using concrete details to sum up each moment in sharp, minimalist prose.

You might try returning to a particular relationship or theme, the way Braner does in her essay — remember that you might not know what it will be before you start writing!

Writing Exercise #2:

Write a piece that begins: 

“The first time I heard [name of song/musical artist]…” OR

 “The last time I listened to [name of song/musical artist]…”

 You could also write about the first or last concert you attended, the first or last album you bought, the first or last time you had a crush on a musician, etc.

Turtle Island Stories w/Westwind

Westwind shared a powerful teaching about the Four Sisters and a related writing prompt. Check it out here.

Turtle Island Stories w/Westwind

Westwind told a moving story about saying goodbye and then shared a writing exercise.

Writing Prompt

From where do you get guidance when you face life’s challenges? From where do you find the strength to keep going on to overcome and thrive?

Take a look at Westwind’s PowerPoint presentation here.

Fiction w/Dominik

This workshop focused on epistolary fiction — that is, stories told through a series of documents.

Here are some examples:

For great info on the challenges and rewards of this type of fiction, example texts, and of course, excellent writing exercises, take a look here.

Memoir w/Kathy

Warm-Up Writing Exercise

Write about a wedding. It could be a wedding you’ve attended, a fictional wedding in a book or movie that’s impacted you, or even a rant about weddings and the institution of marriage. Describe the scene in concrete, sensory detail (try to avoid abstractions like “beautiful,” “happiness,” etc.

Remember to think about your social locations (age, gender, class, religion, race, sexual orientation, etc.) and how they impact the weddings you’ve attended or seen represented.

Reading

Read “I Do” by Erin Soros, a Mad writer from Vancouver. Content warning for a brief mention of staff use of violence, restraints in a psychiatric setting.

Writing Exercise

Choose a persistent or powerful experience from your life that exists in a different realm, such as a dream, a fear, a fantasy, a wish, or a supernatural experience. Describe it with as much sensory and psychological detail as you can. Stick to the concrete – try to avoid using abstract descriptive words like “scared,” “beautiful,” etc.

Next, reflect on what it means. What does it say about you, or about our society? Why is this experience significant for you? Here are some things you might choose to reflect on:

•        Your social locations

•        Your geography

•        Current events in the world

•        Important events in your life at the time

Poetry w/Liz

Take a look here for Liz’s latest Writing the Land workshop.

Poetry w/Liz

Liz began this session of Writing the Land by introducing the poem “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens.

Writing Exercise

• I would like for us to compose our own poems featuring different ways of looking at a creature one is familiar with

• You could choose a pet or a creature commonly seen in Toronto (i.e. pigeon, black squirrel, sparrow, starling, seagull, hawk, racoon, opossum, etc)

• In Wallace Stevens’ poem he describes the blackbird as being in several situations/locations (i.e., in verse I the blackbird is “among twenty snowy mountains”, in verse II there are three blackbirds in a tree, in verse VI the shadow of the blackbird appears across a window filled with icicles, in verse XIII the blackbird sits “in the cedar-limbs”).

• The blackbird(s) are also active in various ways throughout the poem flying or passing over elements of the landscape, walking around people, and crying out.

• Think about how and where your creature of choice appears in the cityscape (or the landscape of your own memory). How does the creature move? What deeper feelings and associations does this creature conjure for you?

• Try to write at least 5 short stanzas featuring different visual/emotional perspectives on your creature (try for at least 3, if you are able to write more please do so!)

Dialogue w/David

This workshop focused on writing comedic dialogue using the following three tools:

• Absurd circumstances

• Cross-purpose dialogue

• Repetitive dialogue

Take a look here for examples, exercises, and tons of info on writing funny dialogue, including “comedy traps” to avoid!

Memoir w/Kathy

We began with a warm-up writing exercise: What is something you want to grasp and not let go of?

We the read excerpts from Annie Dillard’s essay “Living Like Weasels” from Teaching a Stone to Talk. You can read the whole essay here.

We discussed the essay in terms of the contrasts it sets up between domesticity and wildness and between choice and instinct. We also defined the literary term “extended metaphor” and discussed how Dillard extends the metaphor of the weasel in her essay.

Then it was time to try it ourselves with the following writing exercise:

Begin an essay as Dillard does, with facts or a story you’ve heard about an animal. Then connect this story/these facts to your own life and about how you think one could or should try to live. Call the piece “Living Like __________” (the animal).

Dialogue w/David

David’s workshop focused on creating good dialogue, meaning:

• Dialogue with rhythm (short sentences, smaller words)

• Repetition (the same words are said over and over)

• Interruptions (character’s don’t let others finish)

  • Indicated with a dash --

• Trailing off (character’s struggle to say what they mean)

  • Indicated with ellipses …

The exercises focused on creating “good dialogue” through characters with clear wants. Take a look here for plenty of great writing exercises and the difference between good and bad dialogue!

Fiction w/Dominik

"What makes food writing different from other forms of writing is its focus on the senses and the pleasure and enjoyment that ensues. You want readers to see the colors of a ripe peach, feel its fuzzy down, smell its ripeness, hear the tearing crunch when biting into it, and taste its tangy flesh… [These senses] can produce emotions, feelings of nostalgia, and involuntary memories."

- Dianne Jacob, author of Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Blogs, Reviews, Memoir, and More

You don’t want to miss Dominik’s phenomenal slides and writing exercises on the subject of food in fiction!

Poetry w/Liz Howard

Take a look at Liz’s fantastic PowerPoint presentation here. She defines the term “psychogeography” and poses the intriguing question: What is the geography of your mind? After using one of her own poems as an example, she encouraged the group to write their own poem in the same style.

WRITING PROMPT:

• Write your own “mind-wandering poem”

• Try to shift between two different “locations” (i.e. how in my poem I alternated between writing about/out of rural locations and urban ones – a city ravine versus the construction of a sauna, etc))

• Who are the people, figures, creatures, etc that populate your two locations (i.e. ducks, father, grandmother, coyote)

• What words and stories do you associate with both places and how can you bring them into the poem (i.e. cellar, pine trees, Ojibway oral history)

• Try to incorporate a dream you’ve had based on one or both locations

Turtle Island Stories w/Westwind Evening

Westwind shared Anishinaabe teachings and traditional knowledge about the colours of the rainbow and colour flags, noting that the rainbow is a wondrous natural phenomenon viewed as a reminder to human beings of the six gifts of life: fire, water, wind, rock, plants, and animals.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What is one insight you gained from the pandemic?

WRITING PROMPT #1: Describe the color palette of your life.

WRITING PROMPT #2: Write about a flag design that describes you and your vision for your life.

Memoir w/Kathy

Writing Warm-Up

First, write about a time when you did something courageous. Some examples:

• Did something alone for the first time

• Practised self care when you didn’t feel like it

• Stood up for yourself or for someone else

• Made a difficult decision

• Was vulnerable with someone

• Rode a rollercoaster; went sky-diving or bungee jumping; travelled somewhere far away

Reading

“Every gym that I have ever loved has been housed within four cement walls; every single one nestled between pillars of steel. Scarborough was peppered with these repurposed industrial buildings, giants that had been abandoned as quickly as they appeared. My capoeira family took up residence in these industrial complexes in the east end, made old shipping headquarters into some semblance of home. In the warmer months we’d raised the garage shutter and let our legs hang off the cement wall, hoping to catch that summer breeze.”

This is the opening to Natasha Ramoutar’s short memoir, “These Four Cement Walls,” which appeared in The Unpublished City: Volume II in 2018. The essay describes how she fell in love with capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian sport that combines song, dance, martial arts, and acrobatics, and the many homes her capoeira “family” has had over the years.

We discussed the piece in terms of the narrator’s arc from thinking of herself as “a quiet, short, thin brown girl” to embodying “that power [she] found so intimidating” on her first day of practice, and how her transformation was enabled through the support of her teammates.

Writing Exercise

Think of a place that, perhaps unexpectedly, has been important in your recovery journey—a place of healing, belonging, and hope. It could be the home of a friend or loved one, a community space like Routes, a hospital, a city neighbourhood, or a place in nature. Use the five senses to describe the place and the people in it, focusing on the transformation that happened for you there.

For example, it could be a day at Routes when you realized you were a good writer, a place where you finally felt free to define yourself on your own terms, or a space where you overcame shyness.

Bonus Writing Exercise

Write a short piece of memoir that begins: Every ___ I have ever loved has been…

Fiction w/Dominik

Old Bones: Retelling Stories

Take a look at Dominik’s PowerPoint slides here. There is some great material about retelling old myths and fairy tales!

Now do your own retelling! Here are some things you could try:

• Start the story at a different point (after the original story finished, or before it normally starts).

• Set it in a different time, place, or genre (make it modern, science fiction, noir, or a western).

• Tell the story from a different point of view (from the villain’s perspective, or a minor character, or even a total stranger who wasn’t in the original).

• Replace one of the central images we discussed earlier (Cinderella’s shoe as a phone, the beanstalk as a business building, Pandora’s Box as a computer virus).

• Change a character to explore issues of gender, sexuality, race, disability, mental health, etc.

Playing with Form

During this workshop, with special guest Rowan McCandless, we looked at three different essay structures. We then used a series of prompts to play with different creative nonfiction forms.

First a look at essay forms

The hermit crab essay is a structure in which the container acts as a shell to hold the story. The term hermit crab essay was first coined by Suzanne Paola and Brenda Miller in their book, Tell It Slant. Hermit crab essays can take the form of a list, a recipe, pharmaceutical instructions, or a collage; the possibilities are endless.

The flash nonfiction essay is a form of creative nonfiction in which compression and the constraint of word count provides the essay’s parameters. Flash nonfiction pieces are generally 1,000 words and under. The flash nonfiction essay can take on various forms such as a braided essay, a collage essay, a lyric essay, a diptych as examples.

The Diptych is an essay form in which two written panels reflect upon one another.

The Prompts

1.      Using the WRITING PROMPT “I regret to inform you.” Write for 4 minutes.

2.      At the top of your page write “I remember” and continue with the first thing that comes to mind. Write for 6 minutes.

3.      PART A. For 3 minutes list the contents of a room that you are familiar with. PART B. For 5 minutes write about being in that room. Focus on the senses. How does it feel being in this room? Is there a memory attached to this room?

4.      PART A. For 2 minutes list all the places you have lived in. PART B. For 5 minutes write an anecdote about each place you have lived.

5.      Divide a piece of paper into quarters with your pen. PART A. Write 2 minutes listing things you like. PART B. write 2 minutes listing things you dislike. PART C. Pick one from the like list and write about it for 5 minutes. PART D. Pick one item from the dislike list and write about for 5 minutes.

6.      PART ONE. write 15 sentences using the following writing prompt. I’m the kind of person who__________________ but doesn’t _____________________________. Write for 10 minutes. Remember to write to the concrete rather than to the abstract. PART TWO. Look over your list and choose one sentence to expand upon. Write for 10 minutes.

You can take a look at Rowan’s slides from the workshop here: https://youtu.be/qJXHDdTsmIY

Poetry w/Liz Howard

The theme for this workshop was “street sonnets.” Liz began by defining what a sonnet is:

• A “little song” from Italian by way of Old French

• 14 lines

• Sometimes follows a specific rhyming pattern (e.g., Shakespearean sonnets)

Here are a few examples:

• William Shakespeare, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day (Sonnet 18)” https://poets.org/poem/shall-i-compare-thee-summers-day-sonnet-18

• Bernadette Mayer, “[Sonnet] name address date.” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49722/sonnet-name-address-date

• Terrance Hayes, ‘American Sonnet For My Past and Future Assassin [“Inside me is a black-eyed animal”]’ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/143918/american-sonnet-for-my-past-and-future-assassin

Sonnet prompts:

•A poem of 14 lines

•Consider the following:

1. think of a street, neighbourhood, area you frequent. (The season, the sights, all senses, take us on a journey in your poem.)

2. include a saying (like “an eye for an eye”), a joke, a line, something you’ve overheard – failing all that borrow from something at hand, a few words from something you’re reading

3. How can you speak to the inner creature of yourself as Terrance Hayes did? What is a sense of wildness you find inside yourself? Does it want to enter this poem?

Literary Salon for Black-Identified Writers w/Maya Ameyaw

This discussion group for InkWell writers who identify as Black focused on issues including underrepresentation in publishing, the exploitation of Black trauma, and the importance of stories of Black joy. To view the PowerPoint presentation click here.

Fiction w/Dominik

Dominik shared a PowerPoint presentation with lots of info about point of view. Take a look and then try these exercises:

1) Write down a scene involving two people. It can be set anywhere and the people can be doing anything. Don’t think about it too much. Just start writing a scene with two people.

2) Write a new story from a point of view that’s different from the one you used at the beginning of the workshop OR rewrite your earlier story.

If rewriting, you can:

• Use another 1st person POV.

• If you wrote from the perspective of one character, you could now write it from the POV of the other character.

• You could introduce another character entirely. Is this character watching those two people? Are they involved in the conversation? What does this person think of what’s happening?

• When changing 1st person POV, remember: the new POV doesn’t know what the other is thinking, so their reactions (and especially their thoughts) will be different.

If rewriting or writing a new story:

• You could change the POV. If you wrote in 1st person earlier, try 2nd person or 3rd person this time.

Memoir w/Kathy

First, we read and discussed “Spectrum,” an award-winning essay by Vancouver writer and educator Nicole Breit. We then did some brainstorming as a group about associations (personal or cultural) with each of the primary colours. And then it was time to write!