LINE BREAK
A Generative Writing Workshop Series
Poetry of the Sixth Sense
A Garden Workshop
Sunday, 29 September, 1-4 pm
“These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling” — Audre Lorde
Are you still feeling isolated in the “post pandemic” Bay Area? Are you struggling to find time to release the energy you need to continue your new projects? In this three-hour garden workshop, we’ll read and write together, generating new poems as we engage with the untapped strength of our intuitions. Using dreams, tarot, and the powers of sensory and textual associations, you will be given several generative prompts to help you unblock and access new images and narratives. You’ll write poem drafts, share what you wish, and receive only supportive feedback in an inviting South Berkeley garden environment. This retreat-oriented workshop is specifically designed to help you establish new ties to your local literary community while you make space to generate work that awakens you.
Workshop limited to seven participants. Complimentary locally-sourced fruit, bread, and cheese provided, plus coffee and tea. Learn more about your instructor, poet Alex Mattraw.
Registration
$90-180, sliding scale ($90 minimum; $150 suggested; $180 preferred)
To register, please email me for more details and a welcome letter.
If you prefer, you can directly reserve your space through Ticket Tailor. Thank you!
About Line Break
A series of generative writing courses based in a Berkeley home garden, Line Break believes that good writing emerges when we dare to read and write together in-person, when we experiment with new composition and revision practices, and when we openly honor every maker– regardless of background, identity, or experience– as a teacher to learn from. Writers of all stages, genres, and ages thrive when they can generate new material within a low stakes, warm community that values varied approaches to composition. Each retreat-oriented course is tailored around a specific focus related to the writing process, such as cultivating a mindset for composition, employing forms or radical revision practices, and designing (or rejecting) the “poetry project.” When we can share a real time breathing space and break bread together, we can get closer to why we write in the first place. Writers grow when they stick to a practice, but also, when they find a break from whatever their daily Bay Area grind requires. The embrace of the creative process is an embrace of the unexpected, the radical, and the messy– a new text, a quiet workspace, an unfamiliar prompt, nurturing food, and the encouragement of fellow writers.
The Line Break Story
The Line Break Story
All too often, writers are discouraged or discarded before, during, or after the MFA, book deal, or college appointment process. Line Break holds that emerging writers needn’t earn an MFA or publish books to find fulfillment in what they make, and that published and/or established writers can reinvigorate their practice within a supportive community driven space where they can try (or, retry) varied and radical approaches to composition and revision.
Line Break emerged from the consciousness that Bay Area folks are especially challenged with a cost of living that makes the time and tuition needed for MFAs, residencies, long retreats, and community building nearly impossible. With a desire to support all Bay Area people interested in deepening their writing practice, courses are designed so that participants can not only take away a refreshed creative mindset but also practical knowledge and ongoing community ties.