Online Workshop

Happy New Years!

Hope it has started off right.  The year sure seems to be wearing it's fastest running shoes. Almost February. Gosh. Have you been pecking away at poems? Sending some out? Reading lots? Decompressing? 

Workshop

Get to a poetry workshop from anywhere with wifi

Studio Nouveau has been popping up for a few years with readings and workshops as a branch of phafours press. Currently underway is a more intensive workshop of 8 weeks focussing on deep reads and making new poems and chapbooks. See the syllabus [pdf download].

Coming in February is a comparable series, 8-weeks but accessible to anyone, online with more focus on individual poems, with discussions via email, Skype and a Facebook group page. If there's something you'd like to see or see or explore more of, speak now and you can be a workshop shape-maker. $120 for 8 weeks with a sliding pay scale available.
 

In the reading file, I finished and would recommend: A Profession of Hope: Farming on the Edge of Grizzly Trail by Jenna Butler (Wolsak & Wynn, 2015) and Why We Write: Conversations With African Canadian Poets and Novelists, edited by H Nigel Thomas (TSAR, 2006) because the story is compelling and the interviews are so fascinating.

Also, The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester (Oxford University Press, 2003) which was a huge multiple lifetime endeavour.  If you have the OED app, it now can use your phone camera to look up words. Still underway but loving it: Pawpaw : In Search of America's Forgotten Fruit by Andrew Moore. Did you know Johnny Appleseed was spreading the seeds for hard apple cider? They weren't eating apples until after prohibition and cross-breeding for nicer taste. 

When I was a kid I stood with my uncle in his library. Books were shelved 2 and 3 rows deep, floor to ceiling on 3 walls. He said, I'll never live long enough to reread all the books I have. I protested then, but get it now. Still voracious curiosity and appetite is immortal even if we aren't. What new reads have you come across and would recommend?
 

As usual there's the record of Literary Landscape and other goodies up at www.pearlpirie.com  including details on my reading with Gary Geddes in March in Montreal.

Watch www.versefest.ca for the schedule of what's coming in March and ready your calendar. Bound to be some good poetry.

Pass the word if you know someone else who might like to deep-dive into poetry next month. 

Until next time, keep reading and keep writing,
Pearl