RESHELVE ME
winter/spring 2025
workshops & classes
exoliterature: insects in fiction
Thursdays, 1/23/25-2/20/25
On Zoom | 5-7PM PST
cost: $100-$300 (sliding scale, you decide)
one free spot available
Description
Arthropoda have lived alongside humans for many thousands of years, and so it is to be expected that they would make their way into our stories. Their otherworldly exoskeletons and lifeways carry powerful symbolism of transformation, collectivism, metamorphosis, ephemerality, eroticism, alienation, and death. Time and again writers have turned to insects to comment on how our societies (mal)function or implode. From swarms of locusts to silkworms in tea cups, to post-Kafka and beyond, we'll consider Virginia Woolf’s moth, Octavia Butler’s insectoid inspiration, and Rykki Ducornet’s guerilla wasps (among others) in an attempt to survey the insect across a range of genres, cultures, and literary representations. As such, the focus of this class will be on reading and discussion, with occasional generative prompts.
Speculative Shorts: A Short Fiction Workshop
April - June 2025 (see session dates below)
On Zoom | 5-7PM PST
cost: $300, $400, or $500 (sliding scale, you decide)
one free spot available
Description
Worlds built in a paragraph. Whole histories and alternative body plans laid out in a gesture. Light years traveled in a word. Alternative histories don’t need hundreds of pages to be convincing, and lore doesn’t need to sound like it comes from a textbook. It’s invention that makes speculative fiction compelling, not length. Over a 3-month period of weekly classes, we’ll stretch our imaginations in abbreviated forms, share feedback on works in progress, and study techniques of perspective, syntax, and structure in some of the strangest short stories out there, including many pieces published in speculative journals in the last five years. Who’s doing this well, who should I be reading now, who is publishing this stuff and where can i find it—we’ll also talk about all of this stuff!
Be ready to write outside your comfort zone. Speculative fiction need not be sciencey or dystopian—it can also be in how you tell a story using an unusual perspective or form. Just come ready to experiment and read new things. 15 weeks. Classes will be a mixture of discussion, lecture, workshop, play, and guest speakers. The class will take place online, and will culminate in an optional Zoom reading open to the public in June 2024.
Group Meetings (all held from 5-7pm PST unless otherwise noted)
Thursdays, April 10 - June 20 (last class held Friday in observance of Juneteenth!)
*Optional unstructured group writing time on Zoom: April 20; May 12; June 9
June 30, Zoom reading
One-on-one meetings individually scheduled
Climate Journaling in the End Times w/
Corporeal Writing
First Tuesdays, April - July, in partnership with Corporeal Writing
On Zoom | 5-7PM PST
cost: $50-$250 sliding scale, you decide
Description
The title of this course is a bit of a misnomer. However much grief and rage you may feel in this moment when those in power continue to gaslight the masses and perpetuate genocide and ecocide against our loudly stated wishes, there is still more future to be had. Writing about the climate—that is, a sustained and regular practice of journaling, drawing, record keeping, and writing poems about the changes you notice to the environment around you—helps process feelings of helplessness and rage, grief and nostalgia, and encourages a feeling of agency. Having a written record of even the most mundane places—the weeds along the railroad tracks on your commute; the rewilding superfund harbor; the public park, the empty lot, the fallow field—is not only emotionally useful, but it keeps track of the small changes to our everyday that go unnoticed or unremarked upon. Something as simple as noting the temperature and describing the sunset, when repeated overtime, can give texture to remembrances of how you spent your days. These events might happen for the last time or the first time, but noting their coming and going is worthwhile.
Together we will share our observations and practice different strategies of climate journaling in order to build a shared record of climate change, one that will help us remember the past and navigate the future in the places we live.
Deposits, Sliding Scale & Payment Info
(This is my personal payment policy. Classes in collaboration with other organizations will follow the policy of said org.)
Unless otherwise noted, a $100 deposit is required to hold your space. Payment plans are available upon request.
Deposits are not refundable, but I will apply them to a future class if you can't attend the series you signed up for.
In other words, be sure you're ready to do this before paying me $$$.
If a class lists the cost as a range (i.e. $100-300), then I trust you to be able to select the payment level that best suits your current financial situation.
Sometimes I'm able to offer a spot in a class free of charge. I will list below the class title if one of these spots is available. These spots are reserved for those who can't afford to pay but who are at a stage in their writing/lives where they believe they would benefit from some instruction. Just tell me a little about yourself, how you learned about the class, and I'll let you know if the spot is available or add you to a waitlist.