Writing Workshops
The goal of our writing workshops is to help individuals grow either creatively or professionally. We do this through traditional creative writing workshops and through professional writing workshops that are focused on topics like publishing, grant writing, and business plan development. Our primary audiences are Veterans and victims of and witnesses to war and geopolitical violence—individuals whose experiences may not have afforded them the opportunity to yet learn these skills. However, we also offer plenty of classes to general audiences, though the class topics gravitate toward our themes.
Upcoming Workshops
What: This six-week poetry course is a hands-on generative workshop. Each week the class will focus on different strategies to create poems and on a variety of techniques that make poetry writing rewarding. A concern of the class will be material that deals with the experiences, consequences, or realities of war or geopolitical violence but working in those themes is not a prerequisite. The goal for each member of the class is to have solid drafts for at least six poems and an expanded toolkit in order to help with revision. Each session will be a mix of writing exercises, discussions, and informal workshops.
Who: Instructor Lucy Marinelli is an Australian, Bali-based poet and creative writer. She is currently seeking publication for her first poetry collection, written as part of a thesis for her Master of Research in Creative Writing. The collection is based on her experience after the death of a friend, who died at the hands of her ex-partner. Trauma and death are two themes that drive many of Lucy’s stories. Her next project is inspired by her grandfather’s accidental drowning in Australia’s River Murray, an incident attributed to the injuries he received while serving as a medic in WWII.
When: The class will meet every Thursday for six weeks starting on April 25th and finishing on May 30th. Each class will run from 7p to 9p ET.
Cost: $75.
What: Two interrelated classes focused on the challenges and strategies of translating between cultures. Participants can sign up for one or both classes. The goals for these classes will be to gain 1) a better understanding of cultural nuances while translating, 2) clarity regarding the context of the original work, and 3) an understanding of the cultures out of which the resistance movements emerge before attempting to translate them.
Class 1: Translating Resistance—Resistance movements the world over are loaded with cultural nuances. How do we translate those peculiar traits into a different language?
Class 2: Translating Culture—Since the understanding of culture is both collective and personal, how do we translate this understanding into another language without losing the essence of the original text?
Who: Dr. Fathima M. is the Assistant Translations Editor at Conequence and an assistant professor of English at Jyoti Nivas College, Bangalore (India). She received her PhD in English literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 2022. She was also a Fulbright scholar at The University of Texas at Austin in 2017.
When: The first class will meet on Saturday, May 18th, and the second class will meet on Saturday, May 25th. Both classes will run from 11:30a-1:30p ET and be conducted online.
Cost: One class: $45. Both classes $80.
Recent Workshops
Who: Consequence Executive Editor, Matthew Krajniak, will host a fiction workshop for writers who are at any stage of developing a story that relates to the human consequences of war or geopolitical violence. These stories can be of any length, though self-contained pieces typically work best. This class is not exclusively for veterans, combatants, and victims, but rather is open to everyone as long as your story relates to these consequences.
When: We’ll meet every Saturday for six weekends starting on January 13th and finishing on February 17th. Each class will run from 12p to 2p ET.
Why: Writing fiction related to the consequences of war and geopolitical conflict is difficult for any number of reasons, from the lack of verisimilitude to shaping intense personal experiences into an effective narrative. We’ll cover any number of aspects of craft, but learning how to handle these challenging themes will be the focus of this workshop.
How: The first week we’ll concentrate on generative exercises, discussing a short story and a craft essay, talk about the publishing world, and in general get to know each other a little better. For the other five weeks, we’ll continue to do this, but we’ll also reserve the last hour and a half of class for two workshops.
Cost: $125.