Join Charles Goodrich, an Oregon-based poet and writer, for a writing workshop titled “Shrines to the Ordinary: Writing to Illuminate Persons, Places, and Things.” The workshop is in conjunction with the Waterston Desert Writing Prize, a literary honor that will be awarded the evening of June 27 to recognize writing illustrating artistic excellence, sensitivity to place and desert literacy.
Workshop participants will consider how our love for the world gets organized in many different ways. Maybe we have a special arrangement of keepsakes and photos on the night stand bedside our bed. Or we’ve placed a big chunk of obsidian under the lilac to recall a glorious, youthful adventure. Or we simply maintain an orderly arrangement of our hand tools on the wall of the garage. We create shrines with words, too, consecrating a place, a person, or a moment in vivid language. Participants will consider the altars in our ordinary lives and write short pieces in prose or poetry that enshrine a moment. Everyone is welcome, whatever the genre preference or level of experience. Please bring a laptop or notebook for the writing exercise.
Charles Goodrich is the author of three books of poetry and a collection of essays. His poems and essays have appeared in Orion, High Country News, The Sun and many other journals and anthologies. For many years he supported his poetry habit by working as a professional gardener, and he recently retired from his post as director of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word at Oregon State University.
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Free, RSVP is required