AWC Community Writing Workshops: Beginning 2020 with a Burst of Words
Memoir Writing Workshop in Orange Beach.
One of our new programs is the AWC Community Writing Workshops, which aims to connect local Alabama writers with readers and emerging writers at the microcosmic level. What does this mean?
Well, Jessica Renee Langston and Karim Shamsi-Basha created a Memoir-Writing Workshop free and open to the public in Orange Beach. Of the workshop, Jessica said:
“Making Memories into Memoirs: How to Capture and Convey Your Stories” was fantastic. Karim Shamsi-Basha, our instructor, immediately made everyone feel comfortable and willing to share. We got to know each other, went through several exercises including title creation, idea maps and outlines, then we delved into writing our memoirs. Many of us shared our stories and it was amazing to see the quality of work created right there in a four-hour window. Karim made writing our life stories seem manageable instead of overwhelming. And we had a lot of fun, too.
Poet Laureate Emerita Sue Walker was in attendance—and she expressed a sincere appreciation for Karim’s workshop. If you aren’t familiar with Sue, she is not only a proficient and celebrated poet but also the publisher of Negative Capability Press located in Mobile, Alabama. Take a peak at this interview she conducted with author Eugene Platt on the NCP blog.
Diane Clark shares a snippet of her life story during a memoir workshop held at the Coastal Arts Center of Orange Beach on Jan. 4.
Meanwhile, up in Hoover, Claire Datnow put together a fabulous AWC Community Workshop, “A Behind the Scenes Glimpse: Environmental Education and Literature” with an interactive look into how she creates her science-based environmental Eco Mysteries.
Nature lovers, writers, conservationists and adventurers in attendance explored vicarious field trips to diverse natural habits and met the dedicated conservationists who are saving Alabama’s endangered species. The adventure began with a virtual trip to Sehoy Plantation, deep in the heart of a longleaf pine plantation, where the attendees observed Eric Spadgenske with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Mark Bailey, a conservation biologist banding Endangered red-cockaded Woodpeckers. Attendees also traveled to the Mobile-Tensaw Delta to observe the Diamondback Terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin), listed as a species of Highest Conservation Concern, where Research Biologists Ken Marion and Thane Wibbles capture breeding females in the summer, to raise them in a hatchery at UAB.
Ken Wills author of Exploring Wild Alabama and President of Moss Rock Preserve has traveled the entire state as a natural resource planner and biologist for the Alabama Environmental Council. Ken Wills outlined his successful conservation projects to clear invasive species at Moss Rock and Limestone Park, and replace them with native wildflowers and grasses.
We encourage you to read Claire’s blog post on this workshop and rest in the awe of it.
Vitaly Charny, lepidopterist, photographer and co-author of Butterflies of Alabama talked about his field trips over a twenty year period to document Alabama’s butterflies. This project resulted in The Alabama Butterfly Atlas.
Your Turn
If you have a workshop you’d like to share with the public, please read more about our Community Writing Workshops and apply to host or develop your own. Alabama writers bring so much good into their communities and localities. We hope to support this regularly.