Fleshed Out: An embodied writing & movement workshop

This workshop aims to connect minds to bodies and encourage self-empowerment. Our bodies are our homes and in our daily lives, we are forced to separate body from mind. In this two-part, one-day workshop, we will get to know our bodies and connect our creative lives to our physical lives.

Through a holistic and empowered lens, burlesque performer Mary Quite Contrary will lead participants through one hour of burlesque movements that will connect sensuality to the day-to-day. There will be a water and snack break, following which, writer Sarah Elgatian will follow with a writing practice that uses the body as a grounding space for our physical work.

Narrating Grief Through Poetry #2 – Workshop led by Becky Nakashima-Brooke & Ryan Collins

Following their “Narrating Through Grief” workshop in November, MWC and Illuminate Healing Studio will host a writing workshop centered on grief: writing into and through it, using sound and poetry as tools to both capture and release it in creative ways. Hosted by Becky Nakashima-Brooke and Ryan Collins, the program will feature a sound bath, brief readings and discussion, and time to write and share as a group. This workshop will feature different readings and writing prompts than the last one, FYI.

Please email Ryan Collins (mwc@mwcqc.org) to register. Cost for the workshop is “pay-what-you-can” at the door on the day of the event; if you can’t pay anything, no problem.

SPECTRA Reading Series | Final Event of 2024: 12/7 fea. Jacob Saenz & Narratives QC

SPECTRA Lives! The Quad Cities longest-running reading series returns to Rozz-Tox on Saturday, December 7 for its last event of the year, featuring award-winning poet Jacob Saenz and local writers from Narratives QC.

Saenz, whose book Throwing the Crown, won the 2018 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, will also lead a free community write-in at 6:00 p.m.; there will be short reading, followed by a prompt written by Saenz. Copies of the reading will be available at no cost, and there will be time for participants to write and briefly discuss their work, followed by an open mic. Then at 8:00 p.m., three writers from Narratives QC will read from their work – Lynn Carsten, Tanner Jordan, and Nathan Wirth – with Poet and Creative Arts Specialist for Narratives QC Chris Britton introducing. A feature reading from Jacob Saenz will close out the evening.