Classes

Art & Creativity as Activism

Art and writing summarize our history. They are our main means of societal reflection, of processing an event, and then leaving artifacts to later be remembered by others. What we know of history is often because of the art or writing that was created during the time.

Take Edwin Starr’s “War!” or Anne Frank’s diary or the famous 9/11 photograph “Falling Man” or Nutella! — each of these pieces of art tell us about a specific time. Art marries culture and gives the surveyor a view into nuances beyond the newspaper headlines.

COVID-19 is the defining historical event of our lifetimes and it’s up to us to produce the art and writing that reflects it. This is art as activism. It’s not showy but it still protests. It still questions authority and challenges the status quo and works toward a shift. In addition, both art and activism can help keep us mentally healthy while we shelter in place, work diligently on the frontlines or something in between.

This 5-week course was taught May 15-June 20, 2020 and is now available via ebook. Email me.

Enter Through the Side Door:
Ways to Write Through the Darkness

As writers, we are often told to wait to write about our traumatic experiences — to give ourselves distance before we can really mine them. But what if we don’t have the luxury of space or time? What if we need to write to get through these experiences? 

In this generative session, we’ll discuss specific techniques to write about hard topics (though we’ll practice with easy topics). We’ll learn to reflect and parse while we’re in the thick of it and use entering through the side door as a method to unpack our story.

This 1-hour course was taught February 18, 2021 at the Desert Nights, Rising Stars, a conference through Arizona State University’s Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Please email for details regarding course materials. Here is the handout from the course.