DATE: JUNE 30TH, 2018 from 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM
LOCATION: VILLAIN THEATER @ 5865 NE 2ND AVE, MIAMI, FL 33137. Map here
COST: ALWAYS FREE. Donations appreciated. Donate here
Jan Becker, author of The Sunshine Chronicles, welcomes Reading (and Writing) Queer-ians into her Floridian world of sticky weather and peculiar characters. Join Becker for the third season leading “Boot Camp for Queer Writers,” her liberating, exciting, and intense writing workshop for the Reading Queer Writing Academy. Previous seasons of “BOOT CAMP” inspired individuals like trans woman Y’senia Mina to find their voice and use it to elevate their craft and their activism. “Boot Camp for Queer Writers” is open to all writers of any age, writing experience, and sexual orientation. As Jan puts it: individuals can attend “…to get in touch with their own queer identity. Even if it just means you feel you’ve been left out. No one gets left out.”
DESCRIPTION: Lace up your combat boots; we’re recruiting for an army of fierce writers. “BOOT CAMP FOR QUEER WRITERS” with Jan Becker is an intensive, prompt-driven poetry and flash nonfiction workshop. The term ‘boot camp’ may sound intimidating, but the only real order is, “permission to write freely.” This workshop is designed to liberate writers from their individual closets and get their words down on the page. The fast-paced writing drills disengage writers from that nagging, negative voice that plagues and prevents us from accessing what poet Maria Mazziotti-Gillan calls “the wise person who lives within our bellies.” Join us for the third iteration of what has proven to be a productive, empowering experience for writers from beginning level to published. RSVP HERE:
WHAT TO BRING: Please bring own writing utensils and papers.
JAN BECKER is from a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania. She didn’t stay there very long. She grew up in a Marine Corps family, on military bases all over the United States. She is currently an MFA candidate at Florida International University, and has taught courses there in composition, technical writing, creative writing and poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Jai-Alai Magazine, Colorado Review, Emerge, Brevity Poetry Review, Sliver of Stone, and the Florida Book Review. She is the 2015-2016 Writer in Residence at the Girls’ Club Collection in Fort Lauderdale, and winner of the 2015 AWP Intro Journals Award in Nonfiction.