RESTOR(Y)ATION: ORCA POESIS
ECO-WRITING WORKSHOP TAUGHT BY MIRANDA MELLIS
Writing about the ecological “restor(y)ation” of Orca and Salmon, from a poetic and scientific perspective. Writer Miranda Mellis designed this half-day generative workshop to give writers the opportunity to explore how imaginative and contemplative writing can contribute to the co-recovery of orca and salmon in the Pacific Northwest.
A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN CREATURE CONSERVE AND THE ENDANGERED SPECIES COALITION.
Register here: https://www.creatureconserve.com/register-for-a-workshop
WORKSHOP DETAILS
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Date: Saturday, November 28, 2020
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Time: 12-4 pm Pacific Standard Time
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ONLINE via ZOOM
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Fee $55
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Open to writers of all genres & skill levels
DESCRIPTION
From instructor Miranda Mellis
Creation stories such as the Sumerian story of the beginning of the world involve floods, fragmentations of divine bodies, a world wrought from catastrophe. In all manner of times and places stories and poems have helped people to be attuned and responsive to local ecological contingencies as well as those operant at a planetary magnitude.
In order to resiliently re/story, re/mediate, and re/pair damaged ecological, social, and political life we may benefit from taking time for practices of creative, empathetic and intuitive restor(y)ation animated by respect and gratitude for life forms, near and far, in all their incommensurability.
A redaction/text-by-erasure of the Co-Chair Letter of Transmittal from the final report of the Orca Task Force. By Sophia McLain
In this experiential, interactive eco-writing workshop, we will learn about the current existential challenges faced by Orca due to anthropogenic pressures, and then use imaginative and contemplative writing to “think our way into the beings of others”, as novelist and animal rights advocate J.M. Coetzee puts it.
All you need to participate is internet access, a notebook, & a good writing utensil!
Participants will also be invited to submit work – and submission fees waived for a new exhibit on Orca and Salmon Co-Recovery planned for 2021. (Details to come.)
The methodology for this workshop was created by Creature Conserve artists, writers, and scientists with a specific objective: to foster more interaction between us and the living creatures that inhabit the world. We hope to inspire work that is both informed by science and emotionally charged.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Miranda Mellis is the author of Demystifications (Solid Objects, 2021); The Instead, a book-length dialogue with Emily Abendroth (Carville Annex, 2016); The Quarry (Trafficker Press, 2013); The Spokes (Solid Objects, 2012); None of This Is Real (Sidebrow Press, 2012); Materialisms (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2009); and The Revisionist (Calamari Press, 2007). Her stories and essays have appeared in various publications including Harper’s, The Believer, Conjunctions, The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, McSweeney’s and elsewhere. Look for her seasonal column, The Trinocular, at The Believer. She has received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant and the John Hawkes Prize in Fiction. She has been an Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts and Millay Colony. She was a co-founding editor of The Encyclopedia Project with Tisa Bryant and Kate Schatz and currently teaches writing, literature, and environmental humanities at The Evergreen State College.
GUEST SPEAKERS
Grace Ferrara, Natural Resource Management Specialist, West Coast Region, NOAA Fisheries | U.S. Department of Commerce
Laura Koehn, PhD, Fish Biologist with NOAA NMFS West Coast Protected Resources
Cindy Hansen, Orca Network, Education Coordinator
Sul Ka Dub (Freddie Lane), Lummi Nation
Sandra Pollard, Author.