Dorian’s Storyshops/ Writeshops/Conversations
Gauteng
Hartbeespoort
Writing Yourself Alive: A Creative Workshop
R950
Sat 28 (10.00 – 15.30) and Sun 29 Jan (10.00 - 13.00)
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
Leonardo da Vinci
Writing is about a conversation with yourself and with others. An exchange of energies. It is a skill drawn from attention and openess – an organic process rather than a talent. In this workshop we explore our innate creativity and imagination and find the words to tell our stories… to make them more alive. We travel in search of our personal myths - the stories that energise our lives. The workshop also focuses on how to be present in your writing and engage the reader as a creative partner. And source your bliss.
You will explore how to
· align yourself with the one inside who knows how to write
· start and sustain that conversation
This workshop will show you how to ritualise and energize your life though engaging with stories – those of your own and of others. Climb inside stories and tell them from the inside. Listen to them. Shape them. Taste them on your tongue. Reconnect to creativity,
· be thrilled by words
· create a first draft
· breathe life into the words and let words breathe life into you
Bring writing materials, old magazines, scissors, a glue stick and a light lunch to share. I’ll
provide tea and coffee.
Venue: Estate d'Afrique (opp NECSA Gate 1 Pelindaba Rd)
23 Port Provence, Hartbeespoort
Bookings: email Eva Topham 0824575864
Johannesburg
Beginning Again: An Evening of Poetry
R165 which includes a glass of wine
Sun 29 Jan 18.00 – 20.30
I believe that poetry is a primal impulse within us all.
I believe we are all capable of it and …
that a small, often ignored corner of us yearns to try it
Stephen Fry
Billy Collins, American poet Laureate, begins a poem with these simple words:
I wonder how you are going to feel
When you find out
That I wrote this instead of you.
That it was I who got up early
To sit in the kitchen
And mention with a pen
The rain soaked windows.
For many of us poetry was made difficult at school. We had to guess the meaning of
obscure texts. Yet we can all enjoy reading and writing poetry. This evening is about
recovering this simplicity and opening ourselves to the joy poetry can bring. Poetry is another way of paying attention, listening and observing the world. With Wordsworth, ‘we see into the life of things.’ Poetry opens us to our creativity and imagination. It cultivates a sense of belonging.
Venue: 368 Pine Ave Ferndale Randburg
Contact: Chantal Dawtrey email or call 082 901 2404
KZN
Ixopo Natal Midlands Buddhist Retreat Centre
The Halo & the Noose:
The Power of Story Telling/Story Listening
in Professional/ Personal Life
(with Graham Williams)
Fri 10 - Sun 12 Feb
Why stories?
Because stories are origins and origins are places that we walk out from.
Because stories have many feet and travel several roads at once…
because the story conjures the invisible.
At the heart of this retreat is our belief that once we raise our Story IQ, we begin to hear and tell our work and personal life in a new and vital way. We open up to transformation and new leadership paths. Like the lotus flower, we bloom and seed new beginnings. We reach into what may be murky depths and produce something of infinite beauty and worth. In so doing, prosperity and abundance take on new meanings.
The retreat title is taken from Graham and Dorian’s book.
Bookings: Call 039 834 1863 or email
Western Cape
UCT Summer School
Once Upon A Journey: Writing Your Life Story
This course is fully subscribed so I’m offering it privately on Sun 5 Feb
(Southern Suburbs)
R520
It's the process of writing and life that matters... We are trying to become sane along
with our poems and stories.
Natalie Goldberg
Newlands
Writing your Spiritual Journey
R520
Sat 21 Jan 09.45 – 15.45 pm
In the middle of my life I found myself in a dark wood .
The way was wholly lost and gone…
My will and desire were revolved,
as a wheel that is equally turned, by the Love which moves the sun and stars.
Dante - beginning and end of Divine Comedy
The word ‘spirit’ touches every aspect of our lives. In this wordshop we invoke the image of the journey. We write about our changing beliefs and find the stories around those
moments of insight. When like the snake we shed a dead skin and opened to a larger world.
Perhaps we are all pilgrims. Writing offers us a lamp that sheds light along this path. The
storyshop offers you a safe place to explore whatever you need to explore, irrespective of
your beliefs. The workshop also focuses on how to be present in your writing and engage the reader as a creative partner. And source your bliss.
You will explore how to
· align yourself with the one inside who knows how to write
· start and sustain that conversation
· be thrilled by words
· breathe life into the words and let words breathe life into you
Bring writing materials, old magazines, scissors, a glue stick and a light lunch to share. I’ll
provide tea and coffee.
Venue: Frank Joubert Art Centre, Vredenof, off Keurboom Road, Newlands
Stellenbosch
The Magic Carpeters Writing group
Last Wed eve of every month (Jan to June) beginning 25 Jan.
An established writing group meets called Magic Carpeters. I have a few places open.
Flight times 18.30 -21.15. R690 for the series of 6 evenings. Includes soul wine and bread.
We are in need of a place in Stellenbosch. Free course in exchange for a venue. Group size around 12.
Cape Newlands
The Joy And Call Of Stories
Find the Storyteller inside
a practical 4 week storyshop series to evoke creativity and imagination
R1300
early story-bird price: R1150
Four Sat afternoons 4 11 18 25 Feb 14.00-17.00
This workshop will show you how to ritualise and energize your life though engaging with stories – those of your own and of others. Climb inside stories and tell them from the inside. Listen to them. Shape them. Taste them on your tongue. Reconnect to creativity,
Who will benefit from attending:
Writers, storytellers, readers, travelers, lovers of words, images, silences... therapists, artists, spiritual seekers, coaches, teachers, magicians, tricksters, ecologists... anyone who wants to raise their story IQ.
The joy and call of stories will:
- explain the power of storytelling
- give you an understanding of how stories work
- give you practical tools to work with in the telling of stories
- help you develop the ability to tell a good story
- ignite your creativity and imagination
Facilitators: Kirsten Pearson, a Dialogue facilitator, poet and the Project Lead for the
Movement for Sharing Life Stories joins me
Contact: Kirsten Pearson on 082 936 1898 or email
Venue: Frank Joubert Art Centre, Newlands.
Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more
meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.
Robert McKee
Down the Line 2012
Durban Cape Town Johannesburg
The Heart, Head, Breath and Body: Poetry Course
leading to shared Publication (PP)
March-Aug 2012
I see that poetry is a form of attention, itself the consequence of attention and too I believe that poems are presences… that may be called in Dame Julian of Norwich’s words ‘showings.’”
David Ravell, The Art of Attention: The Poets Eye
I am offering a poetry course March-Aug 2012. A number of workshop participants have
asked for a structured course that offers a sense of progression and leads to a shared
publication.
The course consists of two Sunday workshops held in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape
Town for participants in these respective cities. (If there is sufficient interest from another
centre, then I will accommodate this.) The course also includes one-on-one email/phone
tuition after the poetshops. This in turn leads to a publication featuring the writing of all those who participated and will culminate in a celebratory launch of the poetry volume.
There is no admission requirement. We can all learn to write poetry.
Elements covered:
· attention and listening
· how to read and learn from other poets
· rhythm, music, beat, metre and rhyme
· line, sentence and verse
· enriching though images
· words - their meaning and connotations
· ambiguity and word play
· crafting, shaping, structuring and editing
Detailed flyer available from Dorian.
Durban, Cape Town Johannesburg
Once Upon A Journey: A Life Story Course
leading to a shared Publication (LSP)
March-Aug 2012
It's the process of writing and life that matters... We are trying to become sane along with our poems and stories.
Natalie Goldberg
This structured course that offers a sense of progression and leads to a publication. So I am once again offering a Life Story/Memoir course March-Aug 2012. There is no admission requirement. We can all learn to write and have a story to tell.
Here is feedback from 2011 participants:
When we arrived, we shared a common commitment – to write. When we left, we shared
so much more. Having discovered a home space that offered enrichment and blessings,
a magic maestro to keep us inspired and safe, and kindred writers for support,
encouragement and laughter, we looked deep inside, opened our hearts, connected to
our grief, dropped our masks, celebrated the child in us then looked in the mirror to
see...ourselves.
Elements covered in the wordshops:
· voice and presence
· connecting to experience
· opening to imagination and creativity
· engaging the discipline
· developing a facility with words
· crafting, shaping, structuring and editing
Detailed flyer available from Dorian.
