BHWA Community News
workshops, workshops, workshops
Community (and I mean healthy community, not the toxic version that’s infected our society) is the main thing keeping me afloat these days. And I believe that connection with others in authentic and meaningful ways is what will get us through this era. That includes fighting fascism together in any and all ways we can figure out.
I don’t know how, say, exactly having a few friends over now and then to do arts and crafts is a form of resistance, but it is. Maybe it’s the mere act of not letting anyone keep us from creativity and joy, but there’s something about remembering we are not alone and that not everyone is under the spell of the hateful cult currently in charge.
So, when I ask myself what can I do right now, other than keep showing up for protest, cursing politicians under my breath (not sure how the Democrats can still be so disappointing even when I already had no faith in them), and dreaming of leaving the US, the answer for me always comes back to what I know how to do. Build and maintain writing community. One work room or reading or workshop or writing group at a time.
That’s about all I got right now, folks, but all I know is that we can’t give up, whatever that means. Let’s keep fighting the good fight and living by the values we believe in, even in the face of it all. No one knows what to do really, but giving up isn’t an option.
This all brings me to the good part! Community News! For what is a community without Community News! This month’s edition is all about workshops!
Blaise Allysen Kearsley is a writer, writing coach, and workshop instructor extraordinaire. Here are 4 workshops you can take with her! Click the links to learn more.
Alexis Collazo is a writer, workshop leader, and lovely human who offers a wide range of workshops.
Alexis is offering a 6-week online workshop. The Creative Habit: Book guided Writing workshop, August 16th -September 27th, Saturday's 8:00am-10am. Reduced rate offered and Alexis can be contacted to discuss comped seats or payment plans.
In other great Alexis news, her poem, "Party Girl" was published in the Trashlight's inaugural issue Rejects, released July 7th. It's available in pdf and flipbook.
Ungrateful Black Artist (aka UGBA) was NYWC Program/Artistic Director and an absolute artistic genius and captivating facilitator. There is no one who lights up a room like UGBA. He is once again offering his inspirational writing workshop, “No Such Thing as Writer’s Block.” Details below and via the link.
And there’s the amazing Kim Brandon! She will be a guest instructor at the incredible Women of Color writing workshops that many BHWA community members have been a part of.
WOC Writers Guest Poet Series Presents:
Writing as a Tonic: Your Voice as a Prescription During Challenging Times
Facilitated by Kim D. Brandon
Date/Time: Thursdays; July 31st, August 7th & 14th @ 6-9 PM
*Space is limited!- The poetry classes are open to all women of color from across the US and abroad. However, completion of this form does not guarantee a spot. *Please note we are looking for individuals who will be available to attend every meeting. *Meetings will be conducted on Zoom; You will receive a Zoom link for the sessions if you are accepted.
The WOC Guest Poet Series/Class will include interactive sessions of writing, sharing, feedback, discussions, and the use of poetic form. The Women of Color Writers Workshop is a Creative Writing Space for Women, founded in 1997. We are Excited to Have New Faces, as Well as Long-Time Participants of the Workshops!
About Kim D. Brandon:
Kim is a Poet/Novelist/Painter/Activist/Storyteller. Kim is a performance artist, curator and workshop leader. She received her BA from Bernard M. Baruch College in New York. Her work has been included in stage performances and over twenty anthologies, online magazines and journals. Her recent work has been published in Winter in America Again, Baby Suggs and the Purple Butterfly, Boundaries and Borders, and Brownstone Poets. Kim is the founder and curator of the Brooklyn Society Writers Group. Kim received a citation from the Brooklyn Borough President for her work with the community. She has been the 2023 featured poet at Fort Greene Conservatory’s annual fundraiser, The Fling and she was commissioned to write the poem Inspire Her – at the Inspire Her awards event for Black women activists and politicians. She is hoping to publish her first full book of poetry, Red Honey, this year.
Thanks, Aaron. I’m actually packing up for a family vacation (I am granma, best role I ever had) to Sicily, so won’t be marching. I’ll be swimming in the Mediterranean, instead!
But it occurred to me I can send out some words I wrote awhile ago… not even poetry, my preferred arrangement. Here it is:
Essay about dependence
There’s Independence Day, it’s big in our country. Dependence Day, not so much, in fact, not at all! We do not celebrate dependence. We talk of community, speak glowingly of having a circle of family and friends and what does that mean but dependence upon each other?
We depend on wider circles as well – I depend upon my writing buddies to show up each Monday so we can write together, and read for each other, and hear the different voices around our table – each of us with a different viewpoint, all of us joining in a chorus of silent nodding and smiling and silent clapping of recognition of what the other sees – even at times open-eyed amazement at what that different voice just showed us, in an individual way, of our common humanity. We are separate but we are one. We are writing family.
We are also part of larger families: neighborhoods, cities, states, countries and hemispheres. We live in the old world or the new, we live north of the equator and experience the opposite weather from those who live south of the equator. Or we are Folks-who-live-on-islands in the wide Pacific Ocean. We are Folks who may soon be moving to high ground. For we are all part of the tribe that will be dispossessed, whether we believe in global warming or pretend not to. We are dependent on the weather, like the rest of all creation. Birds already know this: they have already begun to move north in the United States. The trees they depend upon need colder weather, and the trees began their moves a while ago, getting sick, dropping leaves, not making seeds, drying up and becoming tinder for fires.
The old fashioned way of looking at the Earth was that it was there for exploration and exploitation, that each part of it delivered us our independence. Now we acknowledge, those of us whose hearts know how to read this Earth, that we and she are dependent upon each other. To tell the truth, we should declare a day each year of Global Interdependence. Both we and our earth live in a tight inter-dependence upon being in just the right place in relation to our sun. Perhaps I had better start a petition to send to the United Nations.