Writing Workshops

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Sixth workshop / July, 2nd - Letters of the Sea: Sailors, Dockworkers and Beyond (full)

Flowers blossom. And I walk in the dark— through the

twisting alley of the city of carnations... searching for us, as we

were, left in an old sepia photograph, the sea behind us.

 

Sailors, passengers, workers, traders, pirates, lovers, sirens... and the light of the moon and the night— all come together on

the surface of the sea and invite us into a journey of discovery. A discovery of the sea’s world with all the lives it holds above

and below.

 

And what better time than July for this voyage?

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Inspired by the sensations of the sea, our July workshop will explore its representations and meanings in fiction. As a powerful space that connects cultures and languages, the sea—and especially harbor cities—will be our thematic anchor. We’ll  examine how these cities appear in literature and how they helped stories travel across borders.

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And of course, taking the sea as the place where poetry begins, we’ll write our own pieces as well, guided by homemade prompts!

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Fifth workshop / June, 4th - Love me, Live me, Unpronounce me: in Between the Lines, in Between the Genders ​

They poured a glass of wine: Coral red, spicy, and fruity.
I fell— the world collapsed around me.
They fell into pieces: As women and men,
They surrounded me.

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We write lines of poetry and prose— lines marked by the gendered structures of languages. We walk the streets by day or

in darkness— our bodies read as gendered signs. We write as women and men— our experiences absorbed into gendered

categories.

But what happens when the text stops obeying the rules of the gendered structure? What shifts when the narrator defies being clearly male or female? In what ways can writing exceed or resist the binary?

 

In our June workshop, we’ll explore these questions and more. Together, we’ll dive into thegender dimension of writing, and discuss what makes literature queer and what it means to write queerly.

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And, of course, we’ll continue crafting our own pieces, guided by some delightfully queer prompts.

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Fourth workshop / May, 6th - "Bread and Roses": Writing as a Form of Protest (full)

We rise with anger and hope, grief and joy, fear and determination. We rise, fueled by the belief in a better world.With a piece of paper and a pen or pencil...

 

A sure-handed poet turns those feelings and emotions into verses to be recited in the crowd—like Louis Aragon, Pablo Neruda, Allen Ginsberg or Nâzım Hikmet. Activists transcribe their words onto banners, street walls, and barricades,as they did during the 1968 revolts and the countless movements before and since. Together, they make a poem—for the street and in the street.

 

In the fourth session of our writing workshop, we will explore the deep connection between literary arts and acts of protest. We will ask: Do writers have a responsibility to engage with societal and political issues? What are the functions of fictions for protest cultures and vice versa? Can the poetic ever be separated from the political?

 

And, of course, we will write—crafting our own pieces guided by prompts and letting ourwords rise!

 

Third workshop / April, 3rd - The Wind Whispers, and We Write with Nature (full)

The rain starts, beating my face. Then I look at the sky, in the dark night, with its shiny stars,lost amidst the city lights...​

 

Natural phenomena: We name our children after them. We invoke them to express our emotions and actions. We also use them to set the ambiance in our writings and to transfer the feelings of our protagonists. We breathe in and out the air, and we write. We write withnature...​

 

In the third session of our writing workshop, we will explore the role nature plays in fostering creativity, remembering Whitman, Rilke, and Hugo—the poets whose verses pay tribute to nature. We will also examine the ways natural events are portrayed in literature and discuss whether fiction writing can help raise awareness about environmental issues.

 

For sure, we won’t forget to write our own short pieces, guided by crafted prompts and inspired by nature!

 

Second workshop / March, 5th - ...We Write (in) Silence... (full)

The night descends and the howls of the dogs rise behind the forest in fog; I touch the worn-out keys of the typewriter. I hear... every single stroke of the ancient clock resounds in myheart.

* What is silence? How do we define it? What are its implications for an author?
* How can we read the silence on pages? What happens when a text refuses to narrate?

* What are the functions of the veiled words? Can they help to write the unspeakable?

 

Exploring such questions, in the second session of our writing workshop, we’ll discuss the solitary dimension of the act of writing and experiment with the role of silence as a narrative technique. In this context, we’ll reference the concept of écriture féminine and its implications for creative writing.

 

The session will also include writing prompts to inspire short passages, followed by writing exercises.

 

First workshop / February, 5th - Shout your Voice to Write! (full)

Imagine you’re in a bookstore, and a strange wind sweeps only the cover pages of all thebooks of the earth. You can no longer tell which book is written by whom, yet I bet that, assuper book dragons, you will be able to guess some of the authors—like Dostoyevsky, Kleist,or Proust—based on the echo of their voices between the lines on the faded pages.

 

This makes it inevitable to ask:

* What makes an author’s voice strong and unique?

* How can we discover and strengthen our own writing voices?

* Does the form we write in—prose or poetry—influence our voices, or vice versa?In the first session of our writing workshop, we’ll explore these questions to understand the magic behind the concept of the Voice—the key element that makes our writings unique and memorable.

 

The session will include writing prompts to inspire short passages, followed by exercises to help us find and reinforce our own voices.