Amanda Leigh Rogers has many years of experience teaching creative writing and is available to lead Creative Writing classes and workshops for adults, teens and children. These classes are designed to free the imagination, foster creative community, and open the spirit through loving cultivation of the inner and outer senses.
Loving What Is: Writing and the Art of Attention In school, in church, at home, we are told to pay attention, meaning we must turn our eyes, ears and thoughts to the authority figure who, with any luck, has something worthy to offer. But as we learn to pay attention to classes, lectures, textbooks, computer screens, and instructions, we can forget how to pay attention to other things -- the shimmer of the blue-jay's feather, the smell of spring mud, the buzz of the dragon fly. How often are we lost so deep in thought, worry, and planning that we fail to notice the strange, gorgeous, frightening, unpredictable presence of nature, of other humans, of our own bodies, of the still small voice of spirit? This class focuses on writing as a kind of mindfulness, a practice in the art of attention.
Become Like a Child: Poetry and Play Play is serious business. The opposite of play is fear, and play is a way of overcoming the fears that shutter our imagination,hobble our creativity work, and keep us from sharing our true selves with our fellow travelers. This class uses a series of exercises designed to overcome fear through fun. Participants play with words, with the world, and with each other. Mischeif leads to insight, silliness to soulfulness.
Words from the Grave: Writing through Grief Loss is a constant of temporal life, and sometimes a loss is so great, or so much loss piles up that it paralyzes us. We may feel dead ourselves, numb, heavy in our limbs, barely able to move. We may feel it like a fiery agony in our bones. Writing through loss can be a way to release the tightness and fear that can accompany grief and reconnect with the love at grief's still center.
Memory, Dream, Vision: Writing the Inner Life Memories, dreams and visions bring us messages from inner worlds, through mysterious, shape-shifting images. In a world that prizes literalism and rationality, we can ignore these messengers as meaningless, or try to pin them down in some rigid interpretive structure. This workshop explores memory, dream and vision through a series of writing exercises designed to allow the wisdom of spirit to emerge and speak through us.
Sacred Conversation: Responding to Scripture: Holy books have been a source of meaning and connection to the Divine for people all over the world for thousands of years. How humbling that the Word, the Logos, the Divine Truth that constantly presses into matter uses human languages, with all their peculiarities, inconsisitencies and limits, as doorway to self-recognition and spiritual evolution. This workshop guides participants in a process of sacred conversation through writing, in which they engage with their own favorite scriptures and holy writings in the powerful human languages of questioning, truth-telling, and prayer.
To contact Amanda Leigh Rogers about these or other classes or workshops, please use the "CONTACT " form on this blog.
Amanda is an amazing writer but she is also such a great teacher. She is always able to see the heart of what my writing is struggling to express, and then she is somehow able to articulate suggestions that support and clarify and improve that expression without making it feel any less mine. -- Pauline
The environment was warm, welcoming and safe. Amanda lead us through brainstorming exercises that were down right fun. The pressure to perform was removed from me and the permission to have fun and try was given back to me.Since finishing the workshop I have written every day. I can't thank Amanda enough for lighting that creative spark in me again. -- Meg
Amanda is a steward for the pleasure of writing. She has a keen eye and ear for the poesy of the moment, and she is a devotee of the skill and craft of best articulation. In my own writing, where I have been blocked Amanda has helped me to reconnect with the spirit of play--and very much stemming from her hand in this, I have continued to surprise myself with the sound of my own voice. Under her tutelage, "lost for words" becomes an adventure. -- Skye
Amanda is an encouraging and grounded force of exuberance, invention, and dedication. Time spent in her course made me a better writer, and an appreciator of the fun, challenging work that it takes to make a story breathe with life, character, and consequence. - Will
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