Electric Divine: Harnessing the Ecstatic

We’ve moved online! All workshops will be conducted through Zoom, an interactive platform that allows you to participate in exercises and contribute to group conversation in your workshops. The day before your workshop you’ll receive an email with a link to Zoom for your workshop session. 

Member Price: $65
Deadline to Register: June 19, 1 pm
Instructor: July Westhale

We will look to the works of ecstatic poets/prose writers, both contemporary and ancient, for evolving definitions of divinity and ecstasy and how they have been embraced or rejected by the writing world. There will be analysis/discussion of the texts, a walk around the property (if the ability of all participants allows), freewriting, and a workshop. Participants will have the opportunity to freely explore ideas, work with examples, define for themselves their own process, share, and receive constructive feedback. July Westhale’s collection of poetry, Via Negativa, is rooted in the cultural understanding of the poet as ambassador or conduit to “the divine.”

July Westhale is an essayist, translator, and the award-winning author of five collections of poetry, including Trailer Trash,Occasionally Accurate Science, The Cavalcade, Quantifiable Data, and Via Negativa. Her most recent work can be found in McSweeney’s, The National Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, CALYX, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and The Huffington Post, among others. When she’s not teaching, she works as a co-founding editor of PULP Magazine. www.julywesthale.com