In this one-day, hands-on workshop, we will write in groups and pairs to create the collaborative voice that sings together.

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Description

Saturday, Nov 8, 9:30am-3:30pm       
Open to all
Limited to 12 participants
Hybrid Workshop*

Do you have an appetite for poetry and connection? For playing and writing with others to enrich your practice, push your limits, and make great things happen? Come collaborate with us!

Collaboration is standard in music, theatre, dance, science, and many other areas of creative and professional practice. Writers have long worked with artists in other disciplines. Some would even say that all writing is, in some way, collaborative: even when we write alone, we’re writing in conversation with the poetry of today and the rich art of the past. The last decade or so has seen a blossoming of writers writing together.

There are many ways to approach literary collaboration.  In “Third Mind,” we begin by creating short sequences and move to editing together and practicing close listening to each other as we develop the ‘third’ or collective voice. We work with models offered by renga (Japanese linked verse) using the technique of link and shift, Surrealist collaborative experiments that seed the ground for gifts of chance, and applied principles of improv theatre, perhaps the ultimate collaborative practice. 

In this one-day, hands-on workshop, we will write in groups and pairs to create the collaborative voice that sings together.

Please bring paper, pens, and a simple object that fits in a pocket. Note: you do not need to sign up with a partner/partners.

*This workshop will take place at the QWF Office (Room 3, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Westmount, Quebec) with up to 2 virtual spots for participants who are unable to attend in-person because of distance or disability. By default, all workshop registrations are for in-person spots. If you would like to request a virtual slot, contact Riley at riley@qwf.org stating the reason for which you would need the virtual spot, then wait for a response before registering. Please do not register until you receive confirmation of a virtual spot for you.

Workshop leader

Credit: Cameron Hayne (left), John Steffler
Born in Italy and immigrated to Canada in 1955, Mary di Michele is an award-winning, internationally published writer. She is the author of over twelve books, including the collection of poems Stranger in You and the novel Tenor of Love. Her last collection of poetry, Bicycle Thieves (ECW 2017), was short-listed for the Pat Lowther Award. She is active in the collaborative writing group Yoko’s Dogs. Now retired from teaching at Concordia University, she continues to live in Montreal. Susan Gillis has lived on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in Tiotià:ke Montréal, and now makes her home in unceded Omàmìwininì Algonquin territory near Perth, Ontario. Her most recent book, Yellow Crane (Brick 2018), is a meditation on ecologies of place, writing, and desire. A chapbook, Last Winter, is forthcoming from Baseline Press. A member of the collaborative group Yoko’s Dogs, Susan also works as a poetry editor and mentor. Mary and Susan have been writing collaboratively since 2006, as members of the group Yoko’s Dogs. In June 2019 their workshop “One Poem, Many Voices: A Workshop in Writing Poetry Collaboratively” was offered in Montreal in conjunction with the Atwater Writers Exhibition. They have also worked together on editorial projects including the micro-poetry webzine HALIBUT and two special issues of Matrix Magazine. Both are accomplished individual poets.

Register

Registration for this workshop is now closed.

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