A Line Going for a Walk
A Series of Open-Genre Writing Workshops inspired by Drawing
New Workshops for Summer and Fall
ONLINE SERIES
Saturdays 9:00 - 12:15 PST
open to writers in all genres
limited to 7 participants to ensure ample time for sharing/response
each workshop is free-standing
DATES
June 29 The Quick Study: Writing as Gesture
July 20 Still Life: Image, Description
August 17 Portrait: The Body
August 24 Portrait: Persona, Character
August 31 Portrait: Persona, Character
September 21 Interior: Setting, Place
October 12 Landscape: Setting, Place
Series Description
“A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.” –Paul Klee
These workshops take a cue from the drawing studio and explore how we can inhabit our writing practice with curiosity and with openness to what happens in the process.
Each workshop is designed to nourish and sustain your writing and to provide camaraderie to help you find fresh points of entry.
These workshops complement the Stanza weekly generative studio in offering expanded time for sharing your work and discussing process within a circle of attentive and thoughtful readers. Each workshop is capped at 7 participants to ensure ample time for each person.
The structure for these workshops attunes to the rhythm of different modes of energy and concentration. The schedule includes time for writing, both in guided generative exercises and offscreen time.
These workshops can be an opportunity to develop new work or to delve further into existing work. Perhaps you have a piece you’ve set down, but it still calls to you. These workshops could provide a good chance to pick the piece up again and inquire into what it might still be holding.
Each workshop includes a selection of texts & images that embody the theme of that workshop.
Above all, we will cultivate an ethos of care and respect for each other’s risks and offerings.
Note: While we will not do any actual drawing in the sessions, I will provide some resources for further study.
Workshop Descriptions
Poses: The Quick Study June 29, 9 - 12:15 PST | online
In this workshop, we'll borrow from the drawing studio in writing sketches or quick studies from verbal prompts, simple phrases that can spark associations, images, narrative, and dialogue. Working gesturally in this way can spark immediacy, ease and naturalness, often providing a way into something that has been circling for a while. Participants will come away from the workshop with a set of prompts for future writing, and a group of studies/sketches that can be shaped and developed further. We’ll also discuss the practice of keeping a notebook to cultivate receptivity.
Image/Still Life: Description
July 20, 9 - 12:15 PST | online
An ordinary object can carry enormous and specific emotional weight. We’ll do a series of writing exercises in sustained looking, observation, description, and association to build your capacity to bring this specificity to the page, in all its sensory detail, considering the object's personal, historical, or cultural significance. Participants will come away from the workshop with a set of prompts for future writing, and a group of studies/sketches that can be shaped and developed further. We’ll also discuss the practice of keeping a notebook to cultivate receptivity.
Portrait: The body
Aug 17, 9 - 12:15 PST | online
A written portrait creates an account of physical characteristics of a person–their face, expression, what they are saying–or not saying. A portrait can create an opening into the inner life or mind of that person, and can suggest something about their style of thinking, their emotional state. We see them in a particular moment, in the flow of their life. In drawings, a powerful portrait isn't static–we can sense the whole person. We might see what they were just doing or what they might do. Action, gesture, movement. Somehow a still image of a person can suggest the person in motion or their mind in motion. Participants will come away from the workshop with a set of prompts for future writing, and a group of studies/sketches that can be shaped and developed further. We’ll also discuss the practice of keeping a notebook to cultivate receptivity.
Portrait: Persona/Character
August 24, 9 - 12:15 PST | online
August 31, 9 - 12:15 PST | online (Note: this is a repeat of the same workshop, not part two)
What is gesture? Why does it matter? Gestures are very concentrated ways of introducing someone’s mind, or way of thinking, or way of being. The gesture itself may seem insignificant, but somehow in just a few sentences, it is as if we’ve met a whole person. We’ll explore the body in motion and how that contributes to our understanding of a character, how people take up space, how we can come to know someone by what they're doing, or not doing. We’ll read some passages that offer concentrated ways of introducing someone’s mind, or way of thinking, or way of being. Participants will come away from the workshop with a set of prompts for future writing, and a group of studies/sketches that can be shaped and developed further. We’ll also discuss the practice of keeping a notebook to cultivate receptivity.
Interior: Setting, Place
Sept 21, 9 - 12:15 PST | online
We can come to know a character even before we see them through an evocation of setting and place – the light, a window by a bed, a blanket folded on a chair. In Marilynne Robinson’s novel, Housekeeping–we see the nine-year-old narrator noticing how the leaves gather in the corner of a room and this contributes to the novel’s ongoing study of abandonment. Participants will come away from the workshop with a set of prompts for future writing, and a group of studies/sketches that can be shaped and developed further. We’ll also discuss the practice of keeping a notebook to cultivate receptivity.
Landscape: Description, Place
October 12, 9 - 12:15 PST | online
How does considering landscape deepen our sense of a character’s experience and sensibility? Sensory details create another way of holding emotion. We’ll explore how giving attention to the elements of place, natural elements, weather, trees, water, forests, sand, etc. can help expand and give complexity to other aspects of a piece. What is the character’s connection to a specific place and how can that place be almost an extension of the self. Participants will come away from the workshop with a set of prompts for future writing, and a group of studies/sketches that can be shaped and developed further. We’ll also discuss the practice of keeping a notebook to cultivate receptivity.
FEES
workshop
$150 each
4 or more: $125 each
workshop + 30-minute 1:1 session (to be scheduled later)
$195 ( 4 or more: $170 each)
Space is limited to 7 participants per workshop.
To hold a space, please email me to let me know which one/s you’d like to join and pay the registration fee using any of the methods below.
Zelle, Paypal or Venmo
zelle (geninelentine@gmail.com)
venmo (@genine-lentine)
In-Person Workshops
Outer Sunset SF
Sundays, 10 - 3 PST
June 23 Portrait: Evoking Presence on the Page [FULL]
Sept 1 Landscape: Elements of Place
June 23 | Outer Sunset, SF
Portrait: Evoking Presence on the Page
A written portrait creates an account of physical characteristics of a person - their face, expression, what they are saying–or not saying. A portrait can create an opening into the inner life or mind of that person, and can suggest something about their style of thinking, their emotional state. We see them in a particular moment, in the flow of their life. In drawings, a powerful portrait isn't static–we can sense the whole person. We might see what they were just doing or what they might do. Action, gesture, movement. Somehow a still image of a person can suggest the person in motion or their mind in motion. Participants will come away from the workshop with a set of prompts for future writing, and a group of studies/sketches that can be shaped and developed further. We’ll also discuss the practice of keeping a notebook to cultivate receptivity.
Sept 1 | Outer Sunset, SF
Landscape: Elements of Place
How does considering landscape deepen our sense of a character’s experience and sensibility? Sensory details create another way of holding emotion. We’ll explore how giving attention to the elements of place, natural elements, weather, trees, water, forests, sand, etc. can help expand and give complexity to other aspects of a piece. What is the character’s connection to a specific place and how can that place be almost an extension of the self. Participants will come away from the workshop with a set of prompts for future writing, and a group of studies/sketches that can be shaped and developed further. We’ll also discuss the practice of keeping a notebook to cultivate receptivity.
fees / In-Person
workshop
$300 each
workshop + 30-minute 1:1 session (to be scheduled later)
$345
To hold a space, please email me to let me know which one/s you’d like to join and pay the registration fee using any of the methods below.
To register, you can use Zelle, Paypal or Venmo.
zelle (geninelentine@gmail.com)
venmo (@genine-lentine)