Corporeal Re-Visioning
Revision is just that: a new way of seeing.
The Corporeal Writing squad wants to collaborate with you in finding new visions of and in your writing. As editors, we help writers see the corporeal language in their work (trust us, you have some!) and suggest ways of using that language to express and amplify their project’s deepest meanings. We help open a work up, push further, wider, deeper, instead of using our position to take away, shut down, close off, or fix. There is nothing fixed about a new way of seeing.
Corporeal Writing was built on the spirit of collaboration and as editors we see ourselves as exactly that: collaborators. We don’t want to impose our will on your work; we want to meet you in your words.
Contacts are listed for each squad member; send them a note and tell them what you have and what you are looking for in your collaboration. Each of us offers different focuses and styles. Prices vary by project but we strive to keep them reasonable.
We look forward to learning about your work and supporting you in making it sing!
(Please note: Lidia Yuknavitch is on pause from taking on private collaborations, and we are not keeping a waitlist at this time. Janice Lee is also currently not taking on any private collaborations.)
Brigid Yuknavitch
I offer my services as a Poetry Body Worker. I think editing is usually the very last step in the deeper process of writing the poem. It can come too soon. Usually the stuckness or knotted places in a poem are a question or hint about something unsaid, unsurfaced, unknown. So I work from the roots to the leaves and first ask questions about your poem(s) and reflect my reading experience. In following your poetics I pay particular attention to what the poem’s form does. There are so many ways a poem arrives and its form weaves around the language. The more we work together the more we can both notice and arrive at the fine tuning of edits.
I love working with beginners and those looking for beginner’s mind again. I want to support your emerging poetics and show you options and examples when they could be helpful. It can be grounding to have a reader near when you are learning to trust your own process.
Fascinated by what was happening for me as a reader of poetry, I was drawn to study and teach poetry and poetics. This academic plunge deepened my reading experience of poetry because it let me feel the form of the poem in my bones and hear a poem’s relationship to so many other poems. So I am a very experienced reader for your poetry and have taught a wide range of classes at Corporeal Writing which you might also want to participate in to grow your poems.
Please contact me and we can consult about how we might work together on your particular goals or project. I can suggest experiments or respond to drafts. We could start with you sending me a paragraph about what you would hope to get from working with me and if you are ready, one or two poems.
Daniel Isaiah Elder
I can be precious about my own writing. But when it comes to editing and shepherding the work of others, I relish having the distance and clarity to see their writing for what it is. My goal is always to get in touch with an author's voice, feel out what they're seeking to accomplish, and find the best ways to help them do just that.
Lidia Yuknavitch has woven one word into me over years of working with her: opportunity. When doing developmental edits, especially, these are the moments I'm looking for—opportunities where the work calls for the author to dig deeper or weave tighter, or perhaps illuminate a thread they may not have even noticed.
I’m a born-and-raised New Yorker and that informs my approach to editing. Which is to say I am compassionate, excited, and direct. Blunt, even. You should know that before we work together!
I offer developmental, copy, and line editing. I’m happy to edit fiction, nonfiction, and hybrid works. (For poetry, meanwhile, you should definitely work with Brigid.) *As of January 2024, I am primarily open to working on essays and short stories, and doubt I’ll have the bandwidth to take on a book-length manuscript for editing until 2025.
I’m particularly keen on working with fellow queer writers, but all are welcome!
Bio: Daniel Elder is a 2018 Lambda Literary Emerging LGBTQ Fellow, Navigator for Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing, and former non-fiction editor for Entropy Magazine and Nailed Magazine. His essays appear in X-Ray Literary, The Rumpus, Pidgeonholes, Witch Craft Magazine, Entropy, Portland Review, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Gertrude Press, and more, and he is the author of the essay collection The Museum Dose: 12 Experiments in Pharmacologically Mediated Aesthetics. His fiction appears in Newtown Literary, Maudlin House, BULL, and Ghost City Review. Born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens, he now lives and writes in Portland, Oregon, with his cat Terence. His queer grief memoir is currently out on submission.
Katie Guinn
It can be difficult to step away from our own writing and determine whether or not we are saying what we intended to say. And even if we accomplish that, there is often a need to polish and sharpen our work.
As a visual artist and writer, Katie brings a background in freelance writing that excavates the creative force. With a bat's acumen for visual elements and sensory details, Katie inspires writers to go deeper into symbolism and metaphor that call to be expanded upon.
Katie focuses mostly on smaller essays and short stories and has a penchant for hybrid/experimental pieces. If you have a longer project, but her particular skills resonate with you, pitch her what you've got.
Bio: Katie Guinn has been published in Call Me [Brackets], Pacific Stone Zine, The Rumpus, Nailed Magazine, Entropy, and others. Her adult coloring book, The Stoner Babes was published in 2018 by Microcosm Publishing, which recently went into its third printing. She dares you to find typos as she edited that herself. She also spent time as a contributing writer for The Portland Mercury. She holds an undergraduate degree in Apparel Design and Fashion History from The Art Institute of Portland. She leads and co-facilitates creative writing and visual art labs here at Corporeal Writing.
Domi J. Shoemaker
Lost in the writing weeds? Struggling to find your voice? Need a creative kick in the butt or a wise sounding board?
In Tongue and Groove, Domi Shoemaker works with writers one-on-one to guide them further into their unique storytelling and creative power. The weekly sessions, held at Corporeal Writing Center or on Zoom, are designed to help artists discover their own strengths and hear the heartbeat of their truth.
Come with a new idea, a current project in flux, or that piece from the bottom of the drawer that’s humming revival. Tongue and Groove will help you develop a compelling first draft through a mix of coaching, strengths-based critique, and creative conversation.
In the first session you’ll develop shared goals, negotiate accountability steps and bring to life a sustaining creative practice. Domi will provide verbal feedback and somatic responses to your work that will highlight your true voice, the story that’s fighting for the page, and the shape you want it to take. Craft your work with clarity and confidence.
Bring your body and a willingness to leave your comfort zone. For writers of all levels and genres – amorphous forms are a specialty.
Bio: Domi Shoemaker helped create Corporeal Writing, working with Lidia Yuknavitch to hone her vision and bring it to life in Portland, Oregon. They now write, manage space, and lead writing collaborations at the Center, including the Seasonal Collaborations, the WriteNow Creative Labs and Virtual Hours.
Domi holds an MFA from Pacific University, where they also judge the annual undergrad writing contest and are a senior fiction editor for Pacific’s Silk Road Journal. Domi has published with platforms such as [PANK] and Nailed Magazines, and they can be found in print with Forest Avenue Press, and in Lidia Yuknavitch's The Misfit's Manifesto. Domi has a love for hybrid works and they are currently working in mixed media audio visual forms.
Literary credentials aside, Domi’s experience as a crisis mental health worker, bouncer, and sports coach make them uniquely qualified to hold space for compassionate and kick-ass creative conversations. Domi will help you to figure out what you do well and to do more of it, more often.