Maps, Journeys, and Geographies with Anita Skeen and Colleen Anderson – G24070407
“To ask for a map is to say, ‘Tell me a story,’” writes Peter Turchi. In this course we will consider various geographies that we inhabit/have inhabited and various journeys that we and other writers and artists have undertaken. We will examine and create maps, both visual and with words, that tell important stories about who we are as individuals and as a culture. We will look at the writer as cartographer and how through exploration (premeditated searching or undisciplined rambling) and presentation (creating an essay, poem, story, or play meant to communicate with and have an effect on others) we lead both writer and reader on a journey into worlds real and imagined. Every map has a story, and every story can result in a map. Beginners and experienced writers (and map makers) are all welcome. To augment their writing, participants will create their own, personal maps in several forms, using simple collage materials, including printed maps and decorative papers that Anita and Colleen will provide. And, whereas the discussion sessions will meet during regular hours each morning, the map making studio space will be open to students whenever they want to use it.
Instructors
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Anita Skeen
Anita Skeen is currently Professor Emerita in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University where she is the Founding Director of The Center for Poetry. and currently the Series Editor for Wheelbarrow Books. She taught students in kindergarten through high school while working with the Kansas Arts Commission’s Artist in the Schools Program; in traditional venues such as college classrooms as a Visiting Writer and Writer in Residence; and in senior citizens’ centers, libraries, and at Ghost Ranch. She has been the Coordinator of the Creative Arts Program at Ghost Ranch for 41 years, and the Fall Writing Festival for 23 years.
Anita is the author of six volumes of poetry: Each Hand A Map (1986); Portraits (1990); Outside the Fold, Outside the Frame (1999); The Resurrection of the Animals (2002); Never the Whole Story (2011); When We Say Shelter (2007), with Oklahoma poet Jane Taylor; and The Unauthorized Audubon (2014), a collection of poems about imaginary birds accompanied by the linocuts of anthropologist/visual artist Laura B. DeLind.. With Taylor, she co-edited the literary anthology Once Upon A Place: Writings from Ghost Ranch (2008). Her poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies.
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Colleen Anderson
Colleen Anderson is a graphic designer, writer, singer/songwriter, and avid origami enthusiast who lives in West Virginia. Her short essays for West Virginia Public Broadcasting have won national awards, and she is the author of a novel for children, Missing: Mrs. Cornblossom (Quarrier Press, 2012), a poetry chapbook, Bound Stone (Finishing Line Press, 2016), and three collections of original songs: Fabulous Realities (1990), Going Over Home (2010), and Trail through the Trees (2020).