MORNING SESSION • 10:45-12:00
“Poetry As Memoir: An Autobiographical Poetry Workshop” by Steven Reigns
Reality is more interesting than fiction. In this writing workshop you will generate new poems based on the content of your life experiences. This isn’t poetry that hides being the “speaker in the poem” or as if the “I” is anyone but the poet. The act of autobiographical writing leads to deep self-reflection and appreciation. Participants will craft enjoyable, perplexing, humorous, nogistalic, and sometimes troubling life experiences into poetry. This workshop promises to be a supportive environment where the novice and experienced poet can take daring risks with self-disclosure and poetry. You don’t need to like poetry, or writing, or reading. You don’t need to know the rules of grammar, or spelling, or have a large vocabulary. A willingness to try is all that is needed. The Poetry As Memoir workshop will awaken the poet and confesser within you. Class structure will be a mixure of lecture, discussion, and inclass writings. Students are not required to share work with fellow students. Autobiographical poetry is a great tool toexamine the themes, emotions, and moments in one’s complex life. By exploring the depth of one’s life experience, universals are revealed, giving a writer (and reader) the sense of interconnection and not being alone. Writing personally can be challegning but under the tutelege of published poet and trained therapist Steven Reigns it is easy.
“Meditation for Spirituality” by Zen Temple of San Francisco
Feeling stressed out? Do you feel like life can get just too overwhelming sometimes? Is it hard for you to find ways to focus and calm yourself when needed? This workshop will be aiming to teach people how to relieve stress from their everyday lives, and how it can be done on an everyday basis using meditation.
“Queer is Personal is Political”” by Priscilla Cortez
Queer is personal, queer is political, the personal is political. In this workshop, participants will learn about intersections of identity and issues involving race, class and sexuality. This workshop aims to enable and empower participants, to work collectively around the issues connected to their identit(ies) by means of uprooting, sharing and strategizing.
AFTERNOON SESSION • 1:30-2:45
”An Introduction to Local Leather/BDSM Community Resources” by James Sheldon
So you come across an announcement of a leather “run” coming up. The only question is what is a run?What kind of classes and workshops are offered? Can anyone just join a leather club? This workshop will tell how you can link into the local leather/BDSM community and answer any questions you might have.
“Queer Soldier Narrative” by Jose Arias
What was it like to be a soldier in the military under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? In this workshop you will have the opportunity to meet someone who served in the Armed Forces under DADT for nearly a decade, and hear his story and experiences from his perspective.
“An Introduction to Queer Christianity” by Wayne Self & Rev. Jay Emerson Johnson, PhD
The news frames every LGBT issue the same way: “Gay groups” vs “Christian groups”, as if the two were mutually exclusive. But what if they’re wrong, and have been wrong for years? What if there are working Queer activists who identify as Christian, and fervent Christians who identify as Queer? What if they are part of a vibrant, growing movement that synthesizes faith and sexuality identity, not with apologetics or nostalgia, but with a refreshingly radical understanding of both? What if faith could make activism better? What if religion were better when queered? An Introduction to Queer Christianity will examine how LGBT and other queer-identified people are empowered by a self-affirming, inspiring view of Christianity that embraces Christian scripture and tradition in ways that are radically new, yet as old as the Bible.
Please click on the following link, fill out the form, and secure your spot at the conference.
