Creative Workshops 2008
Haypril Writing Newsletter
please respond to mweb address not
gmail.
I listen, watching for a story …I sit waiting…,
that it may float into
my ear…
As if I have travelled a long road and then sit down,
And I wait for a story to travel after me
Following me along the same road…
I will turn backwards to my feet’s heels on which I went
For a story is the wind.
(Bushman //Kabbo - recorded by
Lucy Lloyd in Cape Town, 1869)
Dear writer
Reflecting on Story
Mid March. I facilitate a workshop in an historical house in
Houghton. I ask for a mirror to illustrate what a story is. The staff have none
suitable. Inner prompt speaks, “Look around you.” I see hanging on the wall in
the venue, a double spread of an old newspaper behind glass. Ah better than a
mirror. Seeing though a glass darkly and lightly. What I need is there already,
waiting.
I invite participants in pairs to stand at an angle to the
newspaper, one on either side, then ask “What can you see?” Some see the
‘Wanted’ and ‘Birth’ and ‘Death’ columns. Others an ad for hats and automobiles
and a feature on the old house we are in.
Then someone observes, “I see the reflection of the other
person.”… “And the others in the room,” her partner adds… “and the picture on
the opposite wall…. and the tree outside.”
So the image on the wall becomes the metaphor for the workshop. In
a story I see the contents, I see you, I see the geography of where I am.
Teller and listener communicate through the images. When the story is present,
we become part of a three-some, made up of you, me and the images in the story
that breathe into the place we inhabit.
I smile and give thanks.
“Image, Image, on the wall, synchronicity is the fairest of them all.”
Dorian’s Workshops
Ixopo
Once upon a Zen: Story-telling, Story-listening and Meditation
25-28 April – story telling at Buddhist
Retreat Centre with Bob Commin. brcixopo@futurenet.co.za 039 834 1863
Listen with the deep ear in your
chest (Rumi)
In sharing tales from Zen and other traditions, we rediscover the lost
art of story-telling and story-listening. We explore our creativity and
imagination. Activities include how to: structure and create narratives;
meditate on stories; tell them to children in need; listen to
other people's stories; embrace this energy in our own lives.
Gazing down the crystal months …
Somerset West
Sat 10 May
Once Upon
a Life. Writing your story. for U3A
Helderberg (University of the Third Age consists or elders offering their
teaching and leaning) no change… need to
join U3A.
Franschhoek Literary Festival: Exchanging Energies: Writing your Book R190
Sun 18 May 09.30 – 13.00
venue: Club House La Petite Provance .. on the way into
F’hoek...left side ...main drag
This workshop is about writing that
book that has been hiding inside you for too long. Writing is about a
conversation with yourself and with others. An exchange of energies. Writing is a
skill not talent. In
the course you will breathe life into the words and engage a reader while
allowing creative space. Book through me.
Sun 15 June 2 hour mid day slot CCC Cape Town International Book
Fair no cost
I have learned that stories are powerful. You can hide
the positive in your heart and take it out when you are scared or
broken-hearted. Stories give you a way of talking about your problems. (a
caregiver)
Stories feed the heart, mind and
spirit. This talk focuses on how to use
writing, story-telling, symbols and creative modalities to tell and elicit
stories.
Egoli
17-20 July - a series of workshops and interactive speaking
engagements related to Frankl’s work and our search for aliveness and meaning. Contact Coral Wilder coralw@telkomsa.net 011 622-8793
083 450-9148. One of the workshops is:
Finding the Fire: Rekindling our passion for life and work
I know that there is room in me for a second huge and
timeless life (Rilke)
We enter the world of story to recover our creativity, zest,
energy and passion. We search for a myth to sustain and transform us as
we ask, the poet T S Eliot’s question, “Where is the life we have lost in
living?” We consider how attention to life stories and fiction, so rich in
image, symbol and rhythm, can create a more abundant life. The workshop uses
collage work, journaling, visualisation, observation and other modalities to
inspire us.
Pretoria In the Belly of the
Wale: words, images, stories and
healing
9-10 Aug
I love metaphor. It provides two loaves where there seems to be one. Sometimes it
throws in a load of fish. (Bernard Malamud)
This workshop (rich in metaphors) aims to enrich the personal
experience and work of any one involved in the healing professions. It
considers how attention to this mytho-poetic world creates a more abundant life
and opens us to healing.
Workshop run in conjunction with South African Society of
Clinical Hypnosis (SASCH)
(sasch
@ianopperman.com 011
622 1598 086 671 8552)
Hogsback East Cape– Writing, Reflecting, Being
Mon 24 – Fri 28 Nov
Join East Cape poets Cathal Lagan and
Brain Walter and
Other story telling/ writing activities for organisations
Upington and White River co-ordinating a Storywell team, training
caregivers in creative modalities to tell and prompt stories from children
infected/affected by HIV/AIDS and to offer them psycho/social support. (other
Team members: Elma Pollard, Philippa Kabali-Kagwa, Toto Gxabela)
Here is a poem rising from this work:
Ink, Bleach and Gold
east where sun rinses
colour from night,
the scene settles
in a tropic church -
cement floor
crop wilted in the yard.
women sit at trestles
with sheets washed
black in Quinck ink.
masking plaster
sticks the page
at four corners
like an old photo.
dip ear buds
and paint jik figures -
square houses, goats,
a van with a hospital cross,
a ripe mother mango smile,
a green mielie man,
a child rising, Lazarus
from a sick bed.
they spell in symbols
care-giver nights and days.
a story old as ink
emerges in their art.
sun gold from the dark.
Dorian
Olso
Oct/Nov. Stories and leadership in Norway Oct/Nov
Mentoring
Congratulations to Shannon
Walbran whose book - Guided!
How to communicate with your spirit guides saw the publishing light of day. And to
publisher Pat Grayson of Graysonian Press (inspiratinal books that change the world) www.graysonian.com
011-6462956 pat@graysonian.com. Pat writes, “…through the one-on-one mentoring I
offer, aspirants and writers from the
great everywhere explore their passion, their calling.”
5-
Email Courses
Some folks respond to structure,
assignments and seek writing companions… join writes from the great anywhere…
Write Write Write: Writers’ Development: Email
Course (WWW)
Want to craft stories? Peter Merrington , writing coach, former Prof of
English at UWC,
has joined our Creative Workshop team. He will facilitate Write Write Write (www.petermerrington.co.za.) based on
my book The Writer’s Voice.
Contact me for detailed flyer.
Poetry
for Publication (PFP)
Bob and I guide you in writing and selecting your poems for
a solo self publication. Anne-Marie Moore is compiling a collection, Grace note moments Preludes and Poems.
Two
Books a coming (repeat
info)
I’ve been a’writing away. The
Halo and the Noose, the Power of story-telling and story listen in Business
Life with Graham Williams will be out during the second quarter. We run
corporate story workshops based on our book. (look at my site for details) The Achilles Heal, The Healing
Art and Craft of Poetry with Bob
Commin will be out early 2009.
Workshops/Literary
Events with other Folk
Bob
Commin (poet,
creativity coach , storyteller and pastor) runs poetry courses/events in the
Southern Suburbs (
Come, come whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper
Lover of leaving, It doesn't matter (Rumi)
Working with the Artist’s Way Join this creative project on Tuesday afternoons from 16.00 -18.00
and rediscover and nurture your own
creativity. Fish Hoek
Bob is also designing a new format for
the two email poetry courses that we have been running Poem Poem Poem (PPP) Making Poetry
and The Poet’s
Voice (PVC) Advanced
Writing Course. From
June 08 he will be taking over these courses.
Peter Merrington (like me,
a most resigned Professor of English literature) is running small group adventures in creativity in his garden
library in Plumstead/Constantia in the
peter@merrington.co.za His first book of fiction, Zebra Crossing: Tales
from the Shaman’s Record, (Jacana
Press) is out.
Writer-sites and News
Helen Brain, author, has begun writing for a Canadian
web-zine (specifically about writing for children) see link at: http://writingforchildren.suite101.com/
Mandy Lebides’ www.
writescape.com is alive and well. Mandy is a great motivator.
(Thanks to Erna Buber-de Villiers who handles both Mandy and my
sites. (zakerna@cyberserv.co.za)
Source new opportunities every month. Check out Lee Cahill’s www.sabookworm.com Thanks you
Lee for a site that informs and supports writers. This is writer good news.
Wordsetc A South African Literary Journal Loosely based on the
idea of The New Yorker, this is a new literary journal to look out for.
Writers need to read as part of self-tutorship. I suggest you
subscribe to New Contrast (poetry and prose) – 4 copies per annum for
R210. Hugh Hodge, the editor is doing a fine job for writers. Thank you
Hugh. newcontrasted@gmail.com
If you have a need, an inspiration,
let’s create a workshop. Have story wagon will travel.
May stories bark at the ear in your heals.
Dorian-Storyian
PS Thank you to all those who circulate this letter.
Dr Dorian Haarhoff
021 855 3937 / 082 873 6802/ fax 086 511 4751
http://dorianhaarhoffwriter.homestead.com