SNS | 08-26-23
Featuring: Vanessa Rochelle Lewis & Jim Trainer
Theme: Lies
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday August 26, 2023
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List
The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to
3 MINUTES MAX
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 890 9261 3781
Passcode: 374317
Author Bios
Vanessa Rochelle Lewis, MFA, is a Queer, Fat, Black, Femme performer, facilitator, educator, writer, activist, healer, and joyful weirdo. Lewis has been a writer and managing editor for Everyday Feminism and Black Girl Dangerous; an instructor at multiple Bay Area community colleagues; the Artist-Facilitator In Residence for the Young Women Freedom Center; and a core team member for Creating Freedom Movements. She is currently the Director of Programming for the Positive Results Center, an organization that addresses trauma and prevents violence within marginalized communities. Lewis founded Reclaim UGLY: Uplift Glorify Love Yourself – And Create A World Where Others Can As Well, which has hosted conferences, teach-ins, and healing workshops.
Visit Vanessa’s Website: reclaimugly.org
Preorder Reclaiming Ugly! A Radically Joyful Guide to Unlearn Oppression and Uplift, Glorify, and Love Yourself: from Penguin Random House
Patreon: @VanessaRochelleLewis
IG: @Black.Woman.Blooming
FB: Facebook.com/subversivepedagogies
Jim Trainer contributes to Substack, served as columnist for Into The Void and blogged at Going For the Throat for over a decade. Trainer publishes one letterpressed collection every year through Yellow Lark Press. STRIDE is his 8th book. As a progenitor of Stand UpTragedy™ he performs regularly throughout the world.
Jim’s website: jimtrainer.net
Jim’s Substack: jimtrainer.substack.com
Wastebook: JimTrainerCommunicator
IG: @goingforthethroat
Write with Friends! Register for the Write-In!
LET’S WORK ON THE SNS THEME TOGETHER!
Join me the week before SNS, on Saturday afternoon, August 19, for the SNS Write-In, a generative online workshop.
August Writing Prompt:
~Tell me lies; tell me sweet little lies…(Fleetwood Mac)
Who lied to you? Your mother? Your father? The media? The culture? Your teachers, your history books, your peers, your president, your lover, your mirror, yourself?
What was the mean little lie you told yourself? Or the lie you pretended was true?The tiny lie you justified. Who else have you lied to? Because you were being nice, or in denial, or covering up guilt or shame, or having some fun with fiction.
As writers, how can we tell lies in order to reveal an “emotional truth”?
Why do we talk about “lies” as plural and “the truth” as singular?
This month at SNS, you are invited to tell us lies! Or write about a lie, or replace the lies with truths. Tell us a story; write us a poem; sing us a song.
SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:
Make a list of lies, general or specific, personal or political, private or public.
Consider different kinds of lies—small lies, big lies, white lies, plagiarism, perjury, advertising, lies of omission, or betrayal, of compassion or treason.
Use the old ice breaker “two truths and a lie” as a writing prompt.
Think about the lies you’ve told and been told. Excavate the reasons, find the truth.
Pick one or more lies to write about. Use lots of juicy details!
Or
Write something completely or partially made up! Be playful. Change directions, change your story, double back, change your mind.
Or
Something else! As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement.
FOR INSPIRATION:
“White Lies,“ poem by Natasha Trethewey
”Two Truths and a Lie,” poem by Hajjar Baban
”Lies and Longing,” poem by Linda Gregg
”Lies Told Honestly,” poem by Sahar Khraibani
”More Lies,” poem by Karin Gottshall
”The Lies of Sleeping Dogs: A Fable,” poem by Susan Dwyer
”Bakery of Lies,” poem by Judith Askew
“How to Tell a True War Story,” short story by Tim O’Brien from his book, The Things They Carried