In this creative writing workshop we’ll practice imagination’s rightful place in the lives of 21st century humans, banish boredom, lethargy, and the familiar grind. We’ll employ free-writing and other improvisations, and I’ll share experiments and examples of exciting poems and texts with the intention of encouraging leaps of faith, unlikely associations, fresh imagery and dazzling language. We’ll write together, try a range of strategies for “getting started,” and come back on day two with new work to share with the group.  This session will be of use to poets, essayists, memoirists and fiction writers. We also welcome artists from other disciplines, particularly those seeking to stimulate new thinking, inward awareness, and breakthroughs in the creative process. Bring a notebook and writing utensils.

Monday July 22 & Tuesday July 23

1:00-4:00pm

In Leland School Media Room

Cost: $140

Holly Wren Spaulding studied creative writing at Interlochen Arts Academy, University of Michigan, and Trinity College, Dublin. Her articles, essays and poems have appeared widely, most recently in The Nation, Michigan Quarterly Review, Witness, and Wake. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including five Avery Hopwood Awards, The CuChulainn to Kavanaugh Award for Poetry (Northern Ireland), N.M.E.A.C.’s Environmental Journalist of the Year Award, two Pushcart nominations, and a 'Best of the Web' nomination. She has been awarded writing residencies at Mesa Refuge, Blue Mountain Center, The Hill House, and is the current artist-in-residence at the Jean Nobel Parsons Center for Art & Science. Her collection of poems, The Grass Impossibly, won the 2008 Michigan Writers Cooperative Press Chapbook Award. She is Senior Editor of Dunes Review, serves on the board of Michigan Writers, Inc., and teaches writing at Northwestern Michigan College, as well as in monthly Poetry Boot Camps in Traverse City, MI.

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