Learning from Women
Dates: TBD
Format: Videoconference (Zoom)
Cost: $325
Entrance: Submission only (see below); ten participants maximum
the class:
The literary inheritance of women! A whelming scope of those who’ve named themselves—and then the hundreds more who became ‘Anonymous.’ We’ll structure our exploration by form— longer poem, lyric, then experiment.
While some fiction, essays, and theory by women will be included, the generative aspect of the course will be poem-focused, as will the readings.
This will be a strong split course, with one class per week fully dedicated to close reading and discussion of texts by women, and two dedicated to workshopping your poems. Assignments will follow the focus on form—long poem, lyric, experiment—with specific themes from the readings as backdrop. How, for example, do these women see and write themselves? Is it useful to consider a broad ‘female experience’? Women’s ‘themes’? Is the term ‘woman writer’ useful? Are recurring tropes the result of a legitimate shared female experience—can oppression truly bind the literature of as broad a category as sex?
An important note: this is a course about the writing and reading of literature; the primary lens through which to see these authors will be their work. Aesthetic merit will always take precedence over political or historical concerns—and will be our focus. The social condition which drove the text into being will be treated as interesting tangent, if at all; the relics, the texts of these women will be treated as sui generis, and given absolute primacy as objects.
Spece will be joined in instruction and review of your work by two outstanding female teacher-artists week-to-week: Emily Wolahan and Cammy Pedroja.
A brief list of authors, to be further curated by Wolahan and Pedroja: Danner, Cixous, Dickinson, H.D., Riding, Brooks, Cavendish, Sappho, Brontë, Woolf, Lispector, Stein, hooks, Plath, Niedecker, Sanchez, Brock-Broido, Kim, Cortez.
This is a study-, community-, and writing-intensive course; expect 7-10 hours of dedicated writing, reading, critique, and workshops per week. Obviously: all genders welcome.
GENRES
Poetry.
WHAT YOU’LL PRODUCE
Three (or more) new or seriously revised pieces.
WHAT YOU’LL RECEIVE
Earnest critique, community, and investment in your writing.
WORKSHOP LOGISTICS
Sessions generally run 2-3 hours in the evening, beginning at 7 EST.
HOW DO I SIGN UP?
First, submit 3-5 pages of your ‘best’ writing (the writing you think best represents your aspirations) to our Submittable (free of charge). Next, wait for our review and reply; if you’re selected, we’ll send along preliminary readings, links, and payment options.
THE TEACHING ARTISTS:
Joseph Spece read English and philosophy at Boston College, and took his MFA from Columbia University. His books are BAD ZOO (FATHOM 2018) and Roads (Cherry Grove 2013); periodical credits include Poetry, DIAGRAM, Volt, AGNI, datableedzine, 3:AM, TriQuarterly, Fond, Salamander, Berfrois, and Best American Experimental Writing, with cross-genre editorial and reader credits at Narrative, Noble/Gas Quarterly, and The Paris Review. His public honors in writing include a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, artist fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Corrente Prize in Poetry from Columbia University. He is founding editor at FATHOMBOOKS, a micropress with special interest in women writers and queers; he splits time between Wellesley and Provincetown, MA.
Cammy Pedroja lives in Portland, OR, with her husband and two daughters. She took a BA from Sarah Lawrence, an MFA from Columbia University, and a PhD in English Literature and Rhetoric from SUNY Binghamton. Her cross-genre credits include Slate, Huffington Post, Field, USA Today, and the New England Review. Her first book of poems is Notes on Vanishing (Cider Press Review, 2020).
Emily Wolahan is a writer and teacher living in San Francisco. She is the author of HINGE (National Poetry Review Press, 2015), with additional credits in Volt, Fourteen Hills, Gulf Coast, and Boston Review, taking prizes from Arts & Letters and Georgia Review. Her editorial credits include Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Two Lines Press, and JERRY, which she co-founded with Ethan Hon.