Upcoming Kundiman Events:
Prose in a Crisis: an 8-week multi-genre workshop with Shamala Gallagher
October 4th–November 22nd, 2022
Tuesdays, 6:00 PM–8:30 PM ET
This class is a space for us to write through personal crisis, past or present. We sometimes come to a time in our lives where we find that our self, as presently constructed, is not sufficient to go on. Then we stand, not sure who we are, at the threshold of the unbearable. Perhaps we are here because of illness, or gender transition, or new parenthood, or a beloved's death. Perhaps it's because of personal failure, or failure of a belief system, or defiance of family-- or remembering or encountering a trauma, or aging, or perhaps we aren't sure there's a reason at all. The prose we need to write these times might elude us. It might ask us, "What is prose?" It might become the most exciting, heartbreaking, ecstatic prose we've ever written.
In this class, we'll find inspiration or conversation in the crisis prose of Akwaeke Emezi, Terese Maihot, Shruti Swamy, Kiese Laymon, Carolina Ebeid, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and writers you recommend. In our generative writing workshop we will create a shared presence, an openness to one another's suffering and transformation. You'll write at least three new rough pages a week, and we’ll discuss selections from your new writing four times during the class. Our workshops, intended to inspire and quicken new work, will be shorter than traditional workshops and with an explicit focus on affirmation. In addition to reading your classmates' submissions, you'll receive a few pages of prose to read weekly from one of the authors mentioned above. Writers in all genres are welcome.
eligibility:
This workshop is open to all writers of color. The non-refundable tuition fee is $495. This workshop will be held over Zoom. There is a scholarship spot available. The scholarship deadline is Tuesday, September 13th.
REGISTRATION FOR THIS CLASS IS NOW CLOSED.
FACULTY:
Shamala Gallagher (she/they) is a writer and teacher who works to create spaces of radical belonging on and off the page. She writes to bring solace to our loneliest selves; she teaches toward shared freedom of being. Growing up South Indian and white-passing, queer and straight-passing, she’s spent her life so far thinking about what outsiders can offer to our collectives. Her poetry book is Late Morning When the World Burns, published by The Cultural Society, and her writing is up at Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Shenandoah, The Offing, The Missouri Review, and others. Her current project is an essay collection inhabiting in-betweenness, thinking about passing, privilege, mental illness, and failure.