January 2008 Workshop in Chile

Writing Wherever You Are

A Creative Writing Workshop
with Ronna Bloom

Santiago, Chile, Jan 6th to 20th 2008

Join Toronto poet and psychotherapist Ronna Bloom for a writing workshop that will explore the richness and availability of writers’ material in their current circumstances. Writing on a vineyard, in the shadow of the Andes, the workshop will give attention to geographic, emotional, and sensual forces.

- How do writers attune to the pitch of their world and themselves?
- Begin with now: what would it mean to write this moment?
- What geography surrounds you? What emotional resonance?
- How does your body feel? What tastes do you crave?
- Whom did you last speak to? What did you tell them? What didn’t you?

This is your material.

Each day the class will focus on a different aspect of writing presence: Walking, Eating, Witnessing, Being Stuck, Wanting, Speaking, Staying. These are some starting points.

Through poetry, prose, grocery lists, letters, we will look at writing practices that allow us to pay attention to the details of where we find ourselves. While the aim is to deepen and widen our writing and our clarity, it is also good to have time to eat figs off trees, in the sun, in January.

Possibilities for reading:

• anything by Pablo Neruda
• Raymond Carver, Where Water Comes Together with Other Water or All Of Us
• Pema Chodron, The Places That Scare You
• Carolyn Forche, The Country Between Us
• Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems
• Natalie Goldberg, Long Quiet Highway
• Rainer Maria Rilke, The Duino Elergies
• W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz

Ronna Bloom has published three books of poetry. Her most recent collection, Public Works (Pedlar Press 2004), was short listed for the Pat Lowther Award (League of Canadian Poets) in 2005. Personal Effects (Pedlar Press, 2000) was recorded by the CNIB. Ronna Bloom works as a teacher of poetry and writing and as a psychotherapist. She has led workshops at Sunnybrook Hospital, The Art Gallery of Ontario, the Manitoba Writers’ Union and the University of Toronto, where she is presently on staff. Her poems have been translated into Spanish and Bangla, and broadcast on CBC Radio.

For more information:

Email: Susan Siddeley motocad@rogers.com. After mid- November: siddeley@tie.cl.
Phone: Susan Siddeley, (1) 416 968 1769. After mid-November: (56) (2) 207 35 34.