What does it mean to devote oneself to a writing practice?

In a time of competing crises and political chaos, it can be hard to know where to focus our attentions, how to steer our ship in a way that feels directed and clear. Our minds are so often fragmented, distracted, full of anxiety. In this workshop with writer, artist and educator Leora Fridman, we'll talk about Devotion -- a word that has fallen out of fashion but that has a lot to teach us in this time. We'll look specifically at devotion in writing, turning to examples of contemporary experimental writers including Laynie Browne and Rachel Zucker for writing exercises that give us examples of what it means to devote ourselves and, through writing, develop practices that help us devote ourselves more broadly, as opposed to tuning out and detaching.


Leora Fridman is a writer and educator, author of My Fault (Cleveland State University Press, 2016) in addition to five chapbooks, and is currently at work on an essay collection. A 2017 Writer in Residence at Alley Cat Books, her poems, prose and translations appear or are forthcoming in the Rumpus, Tricycle Magazine, Temporary Art Review, Open Space, Denver Quarterly, jubilat and jacket2. Leora holds degrees from the University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA Program for Poets and Writers and from Brown University, and has taught in universities, homes and community organizations across the country.

Leora is an Artist in Residence at Caldera, a program that awards creative individuals, collaborations, and performing ensembles the gift of time and space at the Caldera Arts Center near Sisters, Oregon. This workshop is in partnership with Caldera.



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