Creative Workshops 2008
Aug Writing Newsletter
The spider's
touch, how exquisitely fine.
Feels at each
thread, and lives along the line (Alexander Pope)
Stop
Press
Increase your Joy: Read Like a Writer: The books we love are our
first teachers. They offer private lessons in the art of writing. Attention
book clubbers, book lovers, closet writers, lovers of words. In an interactive
talk, discover with Dorian how to enhance your reading pleasure and enrich your
bookclub evenings. We consider how readers read, and
how writers read other writers. Dorian’s book The Writers Voice has
inspired many aspirant writers.
Firelight:
Stories at Home: This winter season I have been a storying for groups of friends…an evening, a fire, wine,
cheese, breads and tales for the telling. Any rhyme or reason – birthdays, TV
fatigue, the art of conversation, sommer. Gather a
group. R75 a listening and talking head. Group supplies the fare.
Dear
word spinners and weavers
Writer,
AS Byatt’s article, Twisted Yarns, inspires this month’s musings. She writes of a Fabric of Myth exhibition she
attended. Thank you Lali Sher for sending me this. (The Guardian, Saturday June
21, 2008)
I’m thinking about how we
catch each other in a thread and tapestry of words. There are so many stories
about spinning, weaving,- from Ariadne,
Theseus and the labyrinth to Rumpelstiltskin,
Sleeping Beauty and the Lady of Shalott. To a Chinese tapestry story and African trickster tales.
(The exhibition included a West African Anansi
textile, with a pattern of perfect spider-webs.) Here is the story that
inspired the hanging:
Anansi wanted to buy
the Sky God's stories. One task he was set was to catch Onini,
the python. His wife suggested he take a creeper to Onini's
tree. Anansi muttered in the hearing of the snake,
"This creeper is longer than the python." The curious python came down
the tree to listen. Anansi got it to lie down next to
the creeper so they could measure the two lengths. When the python lay down
straight, next to the creeper, Anansi tied up Onini using the creeper. Anansi
took the python to the sky God who declared, "No more shall we call them
stories of the Sky God, but we shall call them spider stories.”
Byatt writes:
…words…
connect weaving with storytelling: text, texture and textile, the fabric of society,
words for disintegration - fraying, frazzling, unravelling, woolgathering,
loose ends. A storyteller or a listener can lose the thread. The word
"clue"…derives from the Anglo-Saxon cliwen,
meaning ball of yarn. The processes of cloth-making are knitted and knotted
into our brains, though our houses no longer have spindles or looms.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,2286817,00.html
Dorian’s Workshops
Egoli
Imagine Life (Coral Wilder)
invites
you to a Winter Workshop series that I’m facilitating
Contact coralw@telkomsa.net 011 622-8793 083 450-9148 for venue, dates and costs.
Discovering
Meaning through Creative Writing: ‘Finding Meaning though Words’
I know that
there is room in me for a second huge and timeless life (Rilke)
Explore
the meaning that is unique to you in your life, through the art of creative
writing.
You
will be guided in a process that will help you ask questions about the purpose
of your existence. You will explore your creativity and imagination and find
words to tell your story… to infuse that story with meaning and make it more
alive. The workshop also focuses on how
to be present in our writing and engage readers and ourselves as part of a
great conversation that opens into mystery.
A Book of Nights and Days
‘Keeping a Journal’
Develop conversations
with yourself (self reflection) and with others around you.
You will learn
to cultivate creativity and encourage consciousness. Since journaling is about
listening to inner voices – parts of ourselves who know answers to our
questions - it has the power to unblock and release potential in all spheres of
our lives.
Finding the Fire ‘Rekindling our passion for Life and
Work’
Enter the
world of story to recover your 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
and observation and other modalities to inspire us.
In
the Belly of the Whale: words, images,
stories and healing
9-10
Aug
Workshop run in conjunction with South African Society of Clinical Hypnosis
(SASCH) (sasch@ianopperman.com 011 622 1598
086 671 8552)
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.
Ixopo Zen Pen: Writing and Meditation
15-17 August –at Buddhist Retreat Centre.
brcixopo@futurenet.co.za 039 834 1863
details soon on the site. www.brcixopo.co.za
Newlands,
Thank you artist Gabby van Heerden (see her www. circlestories
wow mandalas) for putting together this workshop. gabby@circlestories.co.za
Breathing, Words
and Being: Discovering Meaning through Creative Writing
Sun
31 Aug 09.30 –16.00 (registration 09.15)
R380
I know that
there is room in me for a second huge and timeless life (Rilke)
Explore
the meaning that is unique to you in your life, through the art of creative writing.
You
will be guided in a process that will help you ask questions about the purpose
of your existence. You will explore your creativity and imagination and find
words to tell your story… to infuse that story with meaning and make it more
alive. The workshop also focuses on how
to be present in our writing and engage readers and ourselves as part of a
great conversation that opens into mystery.
Bring
a light lunch paper and pens, and a small blanket (If you need one)
September, Octember on….
Stellenbosch
Pastel, Prose and
Presence Workshop
6 September 14:00-17:30 R300 (includes all materials and
refreshments)
Prose
is a coloured window, the colours can be seen only when a candle is lit behind
it.
Join Dorian and
Margaret Laubser, a process art facilitator, as we light a candle behind prose.
Explore colour through a pastel picture exercise and mindful
presence, as we craft the written piece. No art or writing experience needed.
Booking:
Please confirm with Margaret: 021 851 7678 Cell: 082 747 0530
mlaubser@eartheart.co.za
Two Sept. events at the Wakkerstroom Country Inn
Want come to Wakkerstroom
over the 26- 28 Sept? (2,8 hrs drive SE ex Egoli) Why not stay over at the
A Wakkerstroom
Creative Writing Workshop R210
Sat 27
Sept 09.30 – 12.45 (registration
09.15)
The good news? Everybody has a story to tell and anybody can write.
Writing is not a talent. It is a learnt skill. This workshop gets you
started so you can glide across the page. Connect to your creativity and
imagination and be at home with words. The workshop shows you how to reach your
readers.
Beginners are welcome. Dorian
has shown many people how to find the writer hiding inside them. Come and learn to ‘dance.’ Bring writing materials.
Wakkerstroom Arabian Nights Evening
Fri 26 19.00
You
are invited to join us for an evening of fun, laughter and great middle eastern food & wine, with Arabian Nights, Rumi and Nasrudin stories. Listen to tales of love and
intrigue, as you savour traditional delights from the middle
east.
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
Mentoring / Email
Courses
Memoirs, adventures, consciousness, work in the word… genres tumbling out
of folk on the one-on-one path. Working with a ex Medic (paediatrician
oncologist) of 85 and others who are not disclosing ages)
5-
Some
folks respond to structure, assignments… if so, ask and it shall be negotiated.
Poetry for Publication (PFP)
Bob Commin 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.
Books a coming
Corals Publishers has
accepted one of my children’s stories, The Water Diviner. Should be out by Christmas.
The Halo and the Noose,
the Power of story-telling and story listen in Business Life with Graham
Williams has been typeset. We run corporate story workshops based on our book.
(look at my site for details.) Here is one response to the manuscript:
This is the best book about leadership and
business that I have seen in a long time. It is fresh,
interesting, needed and written to reach out and touch the toughest
part of each of us. This is not just about story telling, but more importantly,
about how we can all change our story and create a future distinct from the
past. Read this book.
(Peter Block, USA, author of Flawless Consulting)
The Achilles Heal, The Healing Art and Craft of Poetry with Bob Commin will be out mid 2009.
Competitions
Thank you Deborah Horn-Botha, Secretary - SA
PEN
for this information: PEN/STUDZINSKI
Literary Award. See website, www.sapen.co.za.
The Poetry Society’s
National Poetry Competition 2008. You
can enter now at http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/competitions/npc/
Workshops/Literary Events with other
Folk
Bob Commin (poet,
creativity coach, storyteller and pastor) runs poetry courses/events in the Southern
Suburbs (
Spirituality Group
meets every month (2nd Tues) 6.30 pm at home of Mandy Young,
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
Writer-sites and News
Lynette Steel
(thanks Lynette) highly recommends Robert McDowell, Poetry As Spiritual Practice:
Consuelo Roland writes
My website called www.goodcemeteryguide.com
is now live. It uses my novel The Good Cemetery Guide as a starting
point to explore the topic of death in our society and how we handle it, from a
cultural perspective. Recommended books and poems and art-works and bookshops
and other features are profiled together with items of interest to writers and
readers, such as a Book Club page and writers' resources.
Helen Brain, author,
has begun writing for a Canadian web-zine
(specifically about writing for children) see link at: http://writingforchildren.suite101.com/
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
May
you spin your words. May you life be threaded
with stories.
Dorian
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