Workshop Series at The Sou’wester
Writing Your Conservative Relatives with Jenny Forrester
It’s a fairly universal experience to disagree with family members sometimes. But what if those disagreements are more like a epic gulfs of bafflement and horror? What if your family members are conservatives? What if they’re Republicans? What then?
Write the conservative members of your family into immortality by bringing your pen and paper to the Thanksgiving table. We’ll write scenes that have the immediacy of fiction steeped in the emotional depths of lived experience.
If you’ve dreamed of leaving a story for posterity to tell your whole truth long after you’re gone or if you’ve dreamed of publishing this story for the world, this class is for you. Maybe you feel compelled to write and see what comes of it—consider the possibilities later. Maybe your childhood home remains within your mind as a bright place or a painful place or a beautiful, long gone now place, but the conservativism or religious authoritarianism remains in your metaphors. Write it all. Maybe even find some peace with it.
Literary Memoir offers the opportunity for growth and expression that other types of writing don’t. It’s not just that we’re writing our life’s memories, it’s that we’re writing our resistance through artistic expression. It’s that we’re writing ourselves resilient. So, in this class we’ll talk about what makes memoir literary.
Jenny Forrester has been published in a number of print and online publications, including Seattle’s City Arts Magazine, Nailed Magazine, Hip Mama, The Literary Kitchen, Indiana Review, and Columbia Journal. Her work is included in the Listen to Your Mother anthology published by Putnam. She curates the Unchaste Readers Series. Her debut memoir was published recently (May, 2017) by Portland’s own, Hawthorne Books.
COST: $60
BRING: Paper/Pen/Computer – whatever you’d like to use to write. Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack (hot tea and coffee provided)
All workshops are open to the public.
All Skill Levels Welcome.
This workshop is for students age 17 and up. 20 students max.
RSVP via souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542
The Sou’wester Lodge at 3728 J Place, Seaview, WA 98644
This class is part of the Fall & Winter 2017/2018 Workshop Series at The Sou’wester. Visit www.souwesterlodge.com/calendar to see the entire schedule of more than 28 artist-led workshops.