The Art & Craft of Personal Essay with Beth Kelley & Sue Dwyer – G26100111
This is an innovative workshop in “essaying” – the practice of discovering what we think about ourselves, others, and the world through writing and creative artistic practices.
Together, we’ll explore various approaches to the written essay. In daily craft sessions we’ll cover the fundamentals including voice, perspective, and connecting the personal to the universal. Throughout the week, you’ll experiment with different essay forms like lyric, list, flash, and hermit crab. There is built in free writing time and small-group feedback opportunities.
The creative making practices offer a playful and deeper way to engage with the content of your writing. Making practices, like drawing, creating a personal shrine, or collage shift your relationship to the work, and provide ways to explore and express ideas and emotions when words escape us.
Sue and Beth bring a unique blend of writing craft and creative making that will nourish and build your writerly self-confidence. The invitation is to show up, write, create, and learn together.
Instructors
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Beth KelleyBeth Kelley, CPCC, PCC, LPC is a transformational leadership coach, author, and maker. As a coach, Beth works with organizations to build conscious leaders, resilience, and healthy teams for clients dedicated to developing more holistic, human centered models to care for their people. She brings humor, expertise, and a deep appreciation for the complexities of the human experience. Beth is the co-author of Teaching, Learning, and Trauma (Corwin 2021). As the founder of Mud Witch Industries, she creates experiences of self-discovery, connection, and authentic living through individual and group coaching services, workshops, and the Touchpoints Oracle cards.
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Sue DwyerSusan Dwyer holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics and Philosophy from MIT. She has taught Philosophy, including classical Indian Philosophy, for 30 years, primarily at the University of Maryland. A significant dimension of that teaching involves writing: supporting students in finding their voice, using their creativity, and feeling confident in conveying their ideas to others. An RYT-500, she has taught Yoga to students from 18 to 80 across a variety of classes and workshops (including Yoga & Creative Writing) for 13 years. She has published in academic journals and was an opinion writer for Al Jazeera America. Her memoir essays have appeared in Pithead Chapel and From Months to Years, and her essay “Vulnerability” was chosen as a semi-finalist for the Terry Tempest Williams Prize at the North American Review.