It Feels Right to Me: Pleasure in Practice with Shruti Swamy

Saturday, JANUARY 24th
1:00–3:30 pm ET

“In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial...” — Audre Lorde “Uses of the Erotic”

Audre Lorde knew that pleasure is not frivolous but, in the words of adrienne maree brown a “measure of freedom” that gives us revolutionary power. Taking the writings of both writers as our framework, we’ll explore the varieties of pleasure available to us as readers and as writers: from the physical/musical/aural pleasure of the sentence to the pleasure of watching a writer revel in her own freedom. By locating and celebrating pleasure in texts by Ross Gay, Leone Ross, and others, and by borrowing some of their delight in generative writing exercises, this workshop will engage with the yes at the heart of the work of other writers to help locate it within our own. “[T]hat deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible…”.writes Lorde. What does an orientation towards pleasure make possible in our writing? What does pleasure-centered writing make possible in the world? 

eligibility:

This craft class is open to all writers of color. The non-refundable tuition fee is $50. This class will be held over Zoom; if you are not able to attend, a recording will be shared with all registered participants the week after class. There are scholarship spots available, and the applications are open through Wednesday, January 7th.

REGISTer FOR THIS craft class here

apply for a scholarship for this craft class here

FACULTY:

Shruti Swamy is the author of the story collection A House Is a Body,  and a novel, The Archer. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Elizabeth George Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Council, and Vassar College, and is a 2024 Rome Prize Fellow in Literature. Shruti’s work has appeared in The Paris Review, McSweeney's, AFAR Magazine, and The Believer, and twice won the O. Henry Prize. Her introduction to Ursula K Le Guin’s masterpiece Always Coming Home appears in the novel’s 2023 reissue. She teaches writing with the collective The Dream Side.