Writing the Mystical

A Six-Week Workshop on Describing the Indescribable

1016 Beverley Road @ Urbane Brooklyn

Tuesday evenings, March 3-April 7, 6:30-8:30, $400

Using techniques like apophatic language, sensory imagery, fragmentation, withholding, and accumulation, we’ll explore diverse ways to describe the indescribable. To illuminate the sacred in the mundane.

Each week we’ll have a short reading, drawing on a range of literature, from more traditional mystical texts to the secular mystical. From Gustav Fechner’s epiphany of the “plant-soul” to McKenzie Wark’s Raving and concept of “xeno-euphoria”—the euphoria of becoming alien to oneself via music—and author and perfumer Tanaïs’s transportive descriptions of the olfactory, we’ll explore varied cultural lenses.

Then, we’ll have a prompted generative writing session with a craft focus. And finish by sharing work and give/receive feedback using a constructive model inspired by choreographer Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Method, which was developed specifically for giving feedback to works-in-progress.

Pros and beginners welcome. Prose or poetry. Curiosity and courage are more important than technical skill. This workshop is appropriate if you want to come each week and generate something fresh based on the prompts. If you are creating a longer work, you can use each session’s guiding questions and generative space to expand on your project