Starting with Place with Andrea Lani

Join Central Maine writers for a series of writing workshops spanning genres and forms. Each workshop session will be led by a different writer and all workshop participants will be invited to submit their work for publication in a chapbook. The series will culminate in a public reading and chapbook launch party in Spring 2024.

Whatever you're writing, setting (time + place) is one of the three legs of the stool on which your narrative stands. In this workshop, we'll zoom in on place, exploring sensory detail, memory, metaphor, and research. We'll use Ticonic Falls as an example of how these elements can come together to bring a place to life on the page. Writers will come away from the workshop with the start of a place-based essay and prompts for further exploration of a locale that is special to them.

Through her writing, Andrea Lani explores the connections between humans and nature, embraces the extremes of motherhood, and plumbs the emotional effects of environmental degradation. Her 2018 essay, The Sparrow’s Song, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. As a Maine Master Naturalist, Andrea teaches workshops in nature writing and nature journaling at venues around Maine. She was an editor in the Literary Reflections department of the online journal Literary Mama for nine years and a senior editor for five. She writes freelance articles for magazines and reports for NGOs on topics related to nature and sustainability.

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and realized in partnership with the Colby College Museum of Art and its Lunder Institute for American Art.

Upcoming workshops in this series:
December 12, 2023 - Tyler French, History Poetry
February 13, 2024, 4:30-5:30pm - Catie Joyce-Bulay, children's writing workshop

These workshops are free and open to writers of all levels of experience.
Registration is required - Click to register