Nostalgia for New England: Workshop for Women, Nonbinary, and Gender-nonconforming Writers

We’re right in the middle of Hispanic Heritage Month, but this is also the time of year when I have a bit of nostalgia for New England. The early fall has a fair number of clear blue skies, the mosquitoes and other flying pests of summer are mostly gone, and the leaves are changing color. Our old house:

A few weeks ago, I was over at a friend’s house here in Jupiter, Florida. He and his family were also escapees from Lincoln, Maskachusetts. The very same day, I noticed an email from our old town’s email discussion group. It is about an online workshop that is perhaps organized by some folks farther west, but in which at least some people in Massachusetts are interested:

Writing Workshop for Women, Nonbinary, and Gender-nonconforming Writers & Aspiring Writers

.. a new online and print magazine dedicated to giving voice to women, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming storytellers in mountain literature. They are offering a thought-provoking, two-hour online writers’ workshop for women, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming outdoor writers (and aspiring writers) on September 16 at 4 p.m. Mountain Time (3 p.m. Pacific Time, and 6 p.m. East Coast Time) taught by esteemed nature writer and poet, CMarie Fuhrman. Beginners, as well as experienced authors, are welcome.

“A,” “The,” and Nothing: Articles, Attention, and the More-Than-Human World
Poet, nature writer, and part-time fire lookout CMarie Fuhrman (author of Salmon Weather: Writing from the Land of No Return, director of the Elk River Writers Workshop, and founder of the Confluence Writing Community) will lead this workshop exploring how some of the smallest words in the English language — “a,” “the,” and their absence—carry enormous weight in nature and place-based writing and social justice writing. Through close reading and writing exercises, participants will discover how article choice shapes relationships, intimacy, and the way the more-than-human world is rendered on the page. They’ll move from attention to language to craft, and leave with new tools for listening to what their writing is actually doing.

Could Graham Platner spend part of his retirement trolling for progressive females at this event? The registration page:

Desire Lines Collective is dedicated to elevating women, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming writers of mountain literature. The majority of our workshops are limited to self-identified members of these communities, including this one. We trust participants to honor this space and to uphold our value of fostering communities where women, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people feel safe taking imaginative risks.

Confusingly, though,

We encourage applications from Black and Indigenous writers, writers of color, writers with disabilities, writers from LGBTQIA+ communities, and writers whose voices have been historically underrepresented in the outdoor publishing world.

Could a disabled Black writer who identified as a cisgender male attend?

Speaking of Hispanic Heritage Month, JetBlue got an early start on it (photo from September 8 and the holy month does not begin until September 15), which is great, but then chose to feature a film by Jared Bush and Byron Howard as part of Latinx “heritage”.

Loosely related…