Exploring Sexuality & Motherhood in Writing

In this 3 hour workshop, we will experiment with new techniques to explore sex and motherhood in our own writing.

Details

Sexuality and maternity are subjects most of us have been taught to keep separate. In this class, we will assume that these two embodied, heightened states of being—sex and caregiving—do indeed share borders and inform one another, even though writing about sex and motherhood together may feel dangerous.

In this workshop, we’ll read short excerpts across genre and discuss what we learn from these texts about craft, ideology, identity, and form. We will then write alongside one another, responding to a number of prompts inspired by the readings.


Prompts will be inspired by fiction, nonfiction, poetry, theory, and visual work by artists and writers such as Maggie Nelson, Melissa Febos, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and others.

There will be time for a brief Q&A at the end of the workshop.

What you will learn

• Writers will generate new questions about the intersections between motherhood/parenthood and sexuality, as well as develop new terrain for exploration in their work • Writers will gain new craft techniques for embodied, sensory writing • Writers will explore assumptions lurking within and shaping their own writing, as well as experiment throughout the class with radical, somatic approaches to writing on and through the body

Workshop takeaways

• Connection with a community of writers • Generation of 3-4 new short pieces of writing that could be kernels or openings to longer pieces • Leave with several variations on each writing prompt we cover, as well as numerous craft and theoretical ideas to inspire further writing • Greater awareness of the historical and current discourse on sex and motherhood, as well as a clearer understanding of your own perspective on these subjects

Additional info

Please note that the focus of this class will be to discuss craft possibilities and to generate discussion and new work, rather than to critique, workshop, or edit what we create.