I am very excit­ed to be part of this year’s Ollom Art Fes­ti­val, which will take place from Novem­ber 10 to Novem­ber 15. The theme of the event is “The Hole Project: Min­ing Por­tals of Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty,” and I will be giv­ing a work­shop called “Writ­ing About What You’re Afraid to Write About” that will take place in Man­hat­tan on Novem­ber 14^th (time and loca­tion to fol­low). Here’s the descrip­tion:

Why write about some­thing you fear? To name it and, in nam­ing it, to gain con­trol over it. To learn how not to be afraid. Or, per­haps, to learn how to live with fear. Why try to make poet­ry from your fear, to make it beau­ti­ful with words? Not the straight­for­ward love­li­ness of sur­faces, but the beau­ty that puts us in touch with the full depth of what it means to be human, that does not force us to choose between it and ugli­ness, but rather allows us to expe­ri­ence both beau­ty and ugli­ness as they always already exist with­in us, and in the world around us. Why? Because while a poem may pro­nounce judg­ment on what we fear, it does not judge us for fear­ing it. Poet­ry is not pol­i­tics, and it is not ther­a­py, but find­ing the words that will make your fear beau­ti­ful is an act of hope and, there­fore, of a kind of heal­ing. In this work­shop, we will explore strate­gies for bring­ing that hope and that heal­ing into our lives and our work, whether as poets and writ­ers, or as peo­ple who sim­ply want to find ways of say­ing what they haven’t, till now, been able to say.

Space will be lim­it­ed so please reg­is­ter ear­ly, once the infor­ma­tion has post­ed. (I will, of course, send out a reminder). The price of admis­sion for the work­shop will be $20. You’ll also be able, if you wish, to buy a pass to all work­shops.

Ollom Art is an orga­ni­za­tion worth sup­port­ing. You can buy tick­ets to the open­ing gala here. There’s a 20% dis­count if you buy ear­ly.