The Lyric Essay: Stencils
Courage takes many forms, not the least of which is meeting the gaze of the blank page! What better genre to reckon and capture observed and personal instances of courage than the shape-shifting lyric essay? What better non-form to encourage rule-breaking as writers refine their voices and give in to the alchemy of the telling? Over the course of the week, prompts and supplemental readings will guide in the recruitment and balance of poetry and prose, fiction and nonfiction, research and reminiscence. We will share our written documentaries of courage alongside the opportunities to show up that were missed, avoided, the shadowland of bravery’s stencil…and its definition.
High desert writer Ellen Waterston has published four poetry and three literary nonfiction titles, including her most recent Walking the High Desert: Encounters with Rural America Along the Oregon Desert Trail published in 2020 by the University of Washington Press. Her most recent collection of poetry, Hotel Domilocos, was published in 2017. She adapted her verse novel, Vía Láctea, to a libretto that premiered in 2016 as a full-length opera and is slated for a second staging in 2021. A strong champion of the literary arts, she founded and for over a decade directed The Nature of Words, a literary nonprofit. She is the founder and president of the Waterston Desert Writing Prize, awarded annually to nonfiction projects concerning deserts, and founded the Writing Ranch in 2000, specializing in writing workshops and retreats. In recognition of her work as an author and literary arts advocate, she received an honorary Ph.D. in Humane Letters from Oregon State University Cascades. Other awards include a WILLA and Foreword finalist in literary nonfiction, two-time WILLA Award Winner in Poetry and the winner of the Obsidian Prize in Poetry. She is based in Bend, Oregon.