Tumult / Thunder / Trauma: Redefining Bodies Through Writing

A F2F generative creative lab with Lidia Yuknavitch & Janice Lee and the Corporeal Writing Squad

Friday Sept 19th to Sunday Sept 21st

In-person at McMenamin’s Kennedy School (5736 NE 33rd Ave, Portland, OR 97211)

tumult: as in commotion, disorder, or disturbance and also as in swelling, uprising, change.

thunder: as in the loud rumbling noise heard after lightning due to the expansion of rapidly heated air, and also as in, groundswell, utterance, roar.

trauma: as in wounding, hurt and also as in threshold, wearing away, turn.

“To attempt to understand the world is to simultaneously re-world the world; it is to change it. There is no place to stand from where we might gain a privileged view of things. Looking is intervening.”

– Bayo Akomolafe

How do our stories and poems reflect back the contours of our own bodies and lived experiences? And as beings attached to bodies as vehicles for traversing circumstance, how can we also look more closely at how bodies get created, recreated, defined, redefine, transformed, and re/dis-articulated through our textual bodies? In a time of tumult, thunder, and trauma, how else can we tell these truths without falling into voids or being trapped by the weight of what we’ve been carrying? How might we explore writing as a mode of inquiry in itself, and find more agency and possibility of release in the act of storytelling?

This will be a generative workshop supplemented by guided meditations and other support activities. There will also be time for brief sharing and feedback in smaller groups.

Schedule:

Friday, Sept 19th: 630pm-830pm container-co-creation, writing portal, refreshments served

Saturday, Sept 20th: 11am-1pm generative writing, 1pm-2pm lunch (served), 2pm-4pm generative writing

Sunday Sept 21st: 11am-1pm generative writing, 1pm-2pm lunch (served), 2pm-4pm generative writing

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.

$500 Partner

$450 Supporter

$375 Companion

We always offer payment plans. Please email Daniel at registration@corporealwriting.com for more info, or if you are feeling challenged in any way by the financial requirements of participation.

A limited number of scholarships are available: Click here to apply!

Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of the bestselling novels Thrust, The Book of Joan, The Small Backs of Children, and Dora: A Headcase, as well as the critically acclaimed anti-memoir The Chronology of Water (adapted for feature film directed by Kristen Stewart) and a study on war and narrative, Allegories of Violence. Her polyvocal book The Misfit's Manifesto is based on her TED Talk, "On the Beauty of Being a Misfit," now with over 4 million views. She is a three time Oregon Book Award winner, A PNBA recipient, and a grateful writer who has benefited from grants from Poets and Writers, Literary Arts, and The Regional Arts and Culture Council. She is the founder of Corporeal Writing in Portland, Oregon where she collaborates and agitates, and she teaches in the low residency MFA programs at Sierra Nevada University and Goddard. She lives in Oregon near water. She is a very good swimmer.

Janice Lee (she/they) is a Korean American writer, teacher, spiritual scholar, and shamanic healer. She is the author of 8 books of fiction, creative nonfiction & poetry, most recently Imagine a Death (Texas Review Press, 2021) and Separation Anxiety (CLASH Books, 2022), a finalist for the 2023 Oregon Book Award. Lee teaches workshops on inherited trauma, healing and writing, and facilitates guided meditations bringing together elements from several different lineages as a mesa-carrying practitioner of the Q’ero tradition of medicine work and as a practitioner of Engaged Buddhism (in the tradition of Plum Village and Thich Nhat Hanh). She also incorporates elements of ancestor work, Korean shamanic ritual (Muism), traditional Korean folk practices, plant medicine & flower essence work, card readings & divination, and interspecies communication. She currently lives in Portland, OR where she is the Operational Creative Director at Corporeal Writing and an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Portland State University. She can be found online at https://janicel.com/ and Instagram: @diddioz

Domi Shoemaker is the gender-free co-founder of Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing, where  Domi manages virtual drop-in, connects writers with one another, and leads writing collaborations online and in-person. They also offer coaching and editing services through Corporeal Writing and they would love to talk with you about writing. 

Katie Collins-Guinn (she/they) is a mother, artist, writer, spouse, and dirt digger. Her adult coloring book The Stoner Babes was published in 2018 with Microcosm Publishing, which celebrates diversity alongside the transcendental and medicinal qualities of cannabis, and is sold worldwide. She’s spent time as a contributing freelance writer for the Portland Mercury and has been published in Pacific Stone Zine, Call Me [Brackets], Entropy, Nailed Magazine and others. She knows how to make a spectacular gown from scratch.

Daniel Isaiah Elder (he/they) is a queer Jewish writer and a Lambda Literary fellow. Originally from New York City, they are now based in Portland, Oregon.