Here is the vision: a circle. At its center, you. You are holding a notebook. The words on its pages are yours, lovingly, imaginatively crafted, full of surprising turns and ironies, full of carefully constructed sentences. There are lines; there are strike-throughs. Imperfections, bold choices, incalculable risks.
I ask you to read from that page: Read its nonfiction, its metaphors, its fictive phrasings, its poetry. Read it and feel emptied, feel absolved. Read it and find nimble listeners.
And you do. You lay the words bare, leave them on the floor to be read, to foretell your future.
The listeners wait, let them linger and breathe in a quiet air, let their full weight and bloom be underscored by silence.
And then we commend you, rush through breathless praise and tactful criticism, give you pages lined with hand-scrawled commentary. We compare your work to the others we’ve read by diverse and lovely writers within and without the literary canon, within and without the diaspora.
You leave feeling more confident in the timbre of your voice, in your command of the ideas borne out on the page.
I’m teaching writing this summer. Six-week courses. Join me.
Send your kids between summer camps. Or enroll yourself. You won’t regret it.
A more official, specific announcement is forthcoming. In the meantime, if you’re interested in enrollment, please email me at wingstowrite@gmail.com or post a comment below stating your interest.
Leave a reply to leonor (@strong_cookie) Cancel reply