Maker, Mentor, Muse & Alta Mesa Center for the Arts Presents:
Writers Reclaiming Wholeness Through Identity and Community
Sunday, June 9th - 3:30pm-5pm PST
Zoom

How can writing about identity become a transformational vehicle to build community? This painful, yet affirming process, can break down social barriers and allow for more connection and compassion. Together we will explore common questions that haunt us in this process. What if all one believes is not as was expected? Is this betrayal or enlightenment? In this workshop, we will endeavor to voice our multiple selves through writing about identity as it presents in light of history. We will begin by calling in all the identities in the space evoking images and words. By calling in all identities, voices feel valued and community is built. I am asking that each poet bring an image of an ancestor or ancestral figure for generative writing, and a piece that is hidden or unwritten to be revised and or to share.

About Your Instructor: Karla Brundage

Karla Brundage is an Oakland poet, editor, essayist, activist with roots in Hawaii. A performer, teacher and beach lover, Karla is also a board member of Before Columbus Foundation. A recipient of a Fulbright Teacher Exchange she spent a year teaching in Zimbabwe and three years in Côte d'Ivoire where she founded West Oakland to West Africa Poetry Exchange. Her books Swallowing Watermelons and Mulatta-Not So Tragic (co-written with Allison Francis) reflect on mixed race identity, single parenting, and living with epilepsy. In 2020, her poem Alabama Dirt was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has performed her work onstage and online, and has published both nationally and internationally. Her work can be found at https://www.karlabrundage.com/. Her book Blood Lies:Race Trait(or) came out in February 2024 and is available at Finishing Line Press.

Maker, Mentor, Muse is a teaching platform founded in 2022 by Mary Volmer, Maw Shein Win, and Dawn Angelicca Barcelona. Hailing from three distinct backgrounds, generations, and spiritual traditions we believe community is essential to building a satisfying and sustainable literary life and that true success requires balancing all three artistic roles: maker, mentor, muse. In collaboration with Alta Mesa Center for the Arts, sponsored by Orinda Community Church, we are building a place where artists embrace practices that honor process, spiritual growth, connection, and ongoing community with other writers.