Courage and Questions: Writing Toward the Unknown
w/ Allison Macy-Steines

Sunday, September 14t 1-4pm Pacific via Zoom
(A recording will be made available to all registrants for a limited time afterwards.)

“Let doubt be the location of discovery.” –Danusha Laméris

“The body’s questions, like languages, originate in the earth; they return to earth. They are before/under/beyond language, before/under/beyond any story we might tell ourselves or tell others—our myths. The stories we tell are our attempt at answers. ‘We tell stories in order to live,’ Joan Didion famously wrote. But sometimes the questions we ask are not narrative, not story, but lyric, the realm of poetry, or prayer. We ask ourselves those kinds of questions in order to live with uncertainty.” -Eva Saulitis

“I write to know the questions.” – Dorianne Laux

The Latin root of the word courage is cor, which means heart. When broken apart courage essentially means more heart. Living requires courage. Writing requires courage. Questions require courage too. “Writing Toward the Questions” is a three-hour craft intensive writing class where we will focus on the relationship between courage and questions, and work to write toward the unanswerable places together. The class will feature a craft talk, writing workshop/open-discussion, and generative prompts throughout.

The craft talk will focus on several craft elements— including the power of metaphor, structure, momentum, precision, clarity, connecting the dots through transitions and specifics, intentional choices, and the tether between voice and tone—and how each element can help push us toward spaces of courage, attention, care, interiority, and curiosity in our writing. Following the talk, participants will engage in a writing prompt and workshop/open discussion (using the craft talk portion as a guideline for how to talk and think about each other’s work). The class will conclude with more generative writing sessions to get everyone writing, asking questions, and thinking about the power of revision too.

Pricing:

The following payment model is inspired by and borrowed from the payment model of Bayo Akomolafe’s class, We Will Dance With Mountains: Into the Cracks.

This workshop offers a sliding scale based on your relative financial standing. In an effort to reflect disparity in economic condition and access to wealth, the following payment system is designed for those with more wealth to help cover the costs of those with less access to wealth and resources. We trust your discernment of your current financial situation and how you fit into the global economic context.

As you decide what amount to pay, please consider your present-day financial situation governed by income, but also the following factors: historical discrimination faced by your peoples; your financial wealth (retirement/savings/investments); your access to income and financial wealth, both current and anticipated (how easily could you earn more income compared to other people in your community, country, and the world; are you expecting an inheritance); people counting on your financial livelihood including dependents and community members; the socio-economic conditions of your locale (relative to other places in your country and in the world); your relationship to food & resource scarcity.

$325 Partner

$250 Companion (Note: This amount reflects the “real” value of this course.)

$150 Supporter

$100 Neighbor

$50 Friend

Allison C. Macy-Steines writes both prose and poetry, and she is passionate about bending the boundaries between genres. Macy-Steines earned her M.F.A in Writing from Pacific University and holds a B.A. in Journalism and Media Studies from UW-Milwaukee. Her writing is published or forthcoming in The Missouri Review, River Teeth, Southern Humanities Review, Mom Egg Review, Under the Gum Tree, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for Best of Net, longlisted for Palette Poetry’s Rising Poet Prize, and selected as a finalist for Kenyon Review’s Developmental Editing Fellowship. She recently began teaching creative writing classes and workshops and for the last decade has worked in nonprofit communications, community engagement, and content creation. She grew up in Illinois, and now lives in Oregon, with her husband, kids, and pup.