Diaries - representative of the desire to archive the quotidian - are a universal compulsion, and one found in every known civilization. But they’re also often maligned in formal and academic communities, or else criticized as “overly feminine,” unimportant, for children, etc.

In this 4-week course, we’ll give the act of diary our full attention. By creating our own diaries while studying diaries of all kinds, both traditional and subversive, we’ll work to expand the diary’s limits and definitions, learn in community, and discover for ourselves the power, rebellion, and joy in building an altar for an act that is truly “boring.”

4 weeks

Online

Sliding scale: $125

• One sponsored spot will be available - reach out to inquire about applying! BIPOC applicants will be prioritized for this spot.

• Click here for other Course FAQs, including info about payment plans and sliding scale

What is an anti-writing workshop?

In this class, there will be no critiques of form, content, or message - only cheerleading and curiosity. Writers will opt in to share their work with the class, but will not be told how to “improve” their diaries in any way. We as a community, in turn, will come not with prescriptions, but with questions for the writer and threads of interest. Our first class will cover how to make this shift in pedagogy so as best to support growth of our work(s).

• Derek Jarman’s film Blue

• We Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan

• The milk can diaries of the Polish Jewish ghettos

• Fargo Tbahki’s performance My Father, My Martyr, and Me: Posctolonial Instructions for Loving the Palestinian Body

• Jafar Panahi’s film This Is Not A Film

• Neither’s concept album Trauma

• Frida Kahlo’s diaries

• Audre Lorde’s memoir Cancer Diaries

• Panic maps

• Instagram

• Gardens

• Archives

• Quilts