AUTOPORTRAITS: making stories from art Creative Writing Workshop with Writer in Residence Susan Tomaselli

In 1960, experimental visual artist Yves Klein made a photograph that depicts him seemingly jumping into space from the parapet of a building on a quiet street. The image was published in Dimanche, his parody of a Sunday newspaper.

In AUTOPORTRAITS, a one-day creative writing workshop, we will explore how to write literary selfies on people, places and things. We will use an artwork (Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Claude Cahun, Vivian Maier, and others) as a starting point, and will look at how to tell a story using a central character through various modes and techniques of writing (including Oulipo, surrealism, autofiction etc). We will consider the idea of ‘making’ (story-telling as a construct, framing), resulting in our own one-day newssheet.

All artworks will be provided by the tutor on the day, as well as short texts for close readings.

This workshop takes place as part of the public programme on ways of writing, a series of talks and workshops organised by Susan Tomaselli as part of her Writer Residency with Maynooth University Department of English and Kildare County Council Library and Arts Services 2020/21, supported by the Arts Council.

 

WORKSHOP DETAILS

Booking essential, places are limited to 8 participants.

Saturday 24th July, 10am-4pm, with one hour for lunch.

This workshop is free of charge, but places are limited.  Please apply below, with your expression of interest.

The workshop is suitable for all levels of writing experience, and no previous knowledge of art is necessary.

Participants can additionally avail of a one-to-one clinic with the tutor to discuss and have feedback on their work-in-progress.

 

ABOUT SUSAN TOMASELLI

Susan Tomaselli is founder and editor of gorse journal. She is former co-editor of 3:AM Magazine and editor at 3:AM Press. She has written for The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Stinging Fly, Bookmunch, CultureNI, and contributed to Little Black Book of Books (Cassell 2007), The Beat Anthology (Blackheath Books 2010), and We’ll Never Have Paris (Repeater Books 2019), amongst others. She edited Dogmatika from 2005 until 2009. She has participated in numerous literary festivals (West Cork Literary Festival, Cúirt, Doolin Writers’ Weekend, Listowel, Mountains to Sea), and provides consultation to arts organisations (Temple Bar Gallery + Studios Dublin, The Arts Foundation UK) and literary publishers. Susan is currently working on a novel-in-essays, Traces, on memory, trauma, technology, and failure.

 

APPLY TO PARTICIPATE

Submit an expression of interest to participate here. 

Deadline for receipt of expressions of interest: Friday 9th July, 12pm (noon). Applicants will be notified of decisions by Wednesday 14th July. Please direct all queries to arts@kildarecoco.ie / 045 448328.

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