Flood, Desire and Transitions: Join us for a day of writing!

photograph of writing workshop space, with couch and comfortable chairs waiting for writers!

Join us in the Writing Ourselves Whole workshop space for one of the coming events to say goodbye to Suite 423 -- we will be moving in Feb!

Here’s what’s coming up around Writing Ourselves Whole:

  • This Saturday, Jan 15: Writing the Flood
  • Sat, Jan 29: Reclaiming our Erotic Story: the Liberatory Potential of Writing Desire
  • Just announced! Sat, Feb 5: Writing Transitions: A workshop and fundraiser!

Read on for more information about each of these workshops — and visit our Sign Up page to register!

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Writing the Flood

Every third Saturday, 1-4:30pm!

Writing The Flood is a writing group for anyone looking to prime the writing pump: using the Amherst Writers and Artists method, we will write together in response to exercises designed to get those pens moving, and get onto the page the stories, poems, essays, images and voices that have been stuck inside for too long.  This is a time to work on a larger project, get started on new work, play on the page, or write yourself through a block and back into your writing voice.

Unless otherwise noted, this workshop meets on the third Saturday of the month. $50 (with a sliding scale). Limited to 12. Register or email me with questions: jennifer@writingourselveswhole.org.

Winter 2011 dates:

  • Saturday, January 15
  • Saturday, February 19
  • Saturday, March 19

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Reclaiming our Erotic Story: the Liberatory Potential of  Writing Desire

January 29, 2011, 8:00AM-5:00PM

Sutterwriters Sacramento

Can erotic writing liberate more than our libidos? Does greater comfort with sexual expression lead to greater agency in our communities?

Many of us assume that the erotic is solely the province of the individual, and not the realm of social change or communal liberation – but what happens when we all have wider access to and more comfort with erotic language and sexual expression? The full breadth of our erotic power can challenge what our society teaches us about our sexuality, which is both damning and provocative when it comes to personal expression and human relationships.

I’ve led erotic writing workshops since 2002, and what I’ve found is that writing our desire, in a safe community of engaged and encouraging peer writers, can allow us the space to challenge the negative messages we’ve internalized about sexuality and about our core desires and even our very being. When we bring our longing into the light and find common ground with others, when we risk exposing that which we’ve been trained to be ashamed of, I find that many of us step into a deeply empowered (and more embodied!) self.

In this workshop, we’ll try out some explicit writing, and will consider how empowering a creative engagement with sexual identity, desire, and expression, as well as the ability to write out our fantasies and desire, can affect our intimate relationships, our communities and our work in the world.

The cost for this workshop is $100.  A $25 deposit would secure your place, with the balance due on the day of the class.

To register, contact

John Crandall
Crandall Writers
P.O. Box 22612
Sacramento, California 95822
916-708-9708

john@fireartsofsacramento.com

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Writing Transitions: A workshop and fundraiser!
February 5, 2011
9a-12p or 1:30-4:30p (two sessions)
$75-50 donation suggested

At the end of February, Writing Ourselves Whole will be moving out of the workshop space in the Flood Building that has held us since 2007.

In order to both raise funds for the move and to honor the transition, we want to spend another day allowing Suite 423 to hold us in our work — so I’m offering a three-hour writing workshop/fundraiser entitled Writing Transitions.

Are you or your characters preparing to move through some transitions? Join us for a chance to write into your own, possibly surprising, possibilities while supporting Writing Ourselves Whole!

Transition is defined as: “a passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another.” Points of transition, even ones we’ve chosen and worked for, can be difficult or painful, as we relinquish old patterns for new experiences. While transitions are ongoing, we can feel destabilized and even sort of homeless. In this writing group, we will use the AWA workshop method and write together in response to exercises designed to allow us to honor what we’re releasing, and celebrate the tensions and discomforts, as we vision what we are moving toward. Writers will end the workshop with creative work that engages the complexity, and yes, difficult beauty, of transition times!

If you are working on a longer work of fiction, and your characters are dealing with some transitions, these exercises will allow you to get inside their experience and understand more fully what these changes mean for them.

Contact Jen with any questions or to join us!

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