On (re)Enchantment:  a generative Non-Fiction Makeshop

This class is for you if want to explore the idea of writing as a way of being, if you’re interested in cultivating intimacy with perception, and are unabashed about the idea of the world as a stubbornly enchanted place. By “perception” I mean: the feel of thought sending tender roots down or pushing up through hard ground into the light. By “stubbornly enchanted” I mean “eager to be in relationship, even now”…., and by “a way of being” I mean dependable, daily habits. If this sounds floaty in theory, in action, class will offer practical working methods.

So! In this generative makeshop, you’ll be keeping a journal, and creating/sharing work daily. We’ll also read and discuss assigned essays and poems by writers whose work is marked by transformative, idiosyncratic, mysterious, and yes, enchanted ways of seeing.  At the end of the session, we’ll also touch on revision/redrafting techniques.

You’ll come away with a full journal, drafts to grow, new ways of thinking about working, and a sustaining sense of community – meaning you’ll learn an enormous amount from each other.

Lia Purpura is the author of ten collections, including essays, poems, translations and artists’ books. A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Looking (essays), her awards include Guggenheim, NEA, and Fulbright Fellowships, as well as five Pushcart Prizes, the AWP Award and others.  Her work appears in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Orion, The Paris Review, The Georgia Review, Agni, Emergence, and elsewhere. Purpura has served as Writer in Residence at The University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Loyola University; other teaching venues include the Rainier Writing Workshop, the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference, the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction MFA program, as well as workshops at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, and the Glenwood Life Recovery Center. Her newest collections are It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful (poems) and All the Fierce Tethers (essays).