There’s Joy In The Mourning: Writing About & Through Grief

We find ourselves in urgent need of joy with an urgent need to grieve, collectively and individually, and it is here that we can access the raw transformative power of mourning and remembrance. This workshop will explore the intersection of creativity and ritualistic healing for writers who’ve stalled out, stunned by the monstrosity of human nature; for writers who fill page after page as if weeping; for everyone in the muddled half-starts of the in-between. We will read and discuss the works of poets who dance in the tension of mundane urgency, from Lucille Clifton and Nikki Finney to Jericho Brown, Eve L. Ewing, and more. Participants will generate first drafts for feedback and present second drafts of new work.

Amber Flame

Amber Flame is an artist and performer, whose work has garnered artistic merit residencies with Hedgebrook, The Watering Hole, Wa Na Wari, Vermont Studio Center, and Yefe Nof. Flame served as the 2017-2019 poetry Writer-in-Residence at Hugo House in Seattle, and is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks.