Word Play: Creative Writing, Ecological Literature, and Book Arts

This creative writing, book arts, and literature program takes the art of reading as its central theme. By 'wordplay' we mean reading and writing with full attention to a text at all levels, from a single word to a whole book, and engaging with language, poetry, and narrative in all their weird and wondrous potential. Our literary study, including work by Samuel Beckett, Renee Gladman, Italo Calvino, and Lisa Robertson, will introduce students to critical and close reading, interpretative strategies, and literary studies in general. Through lectures, seminars, and essay writing, students will learn to engage with literature in new ways. Student essays will grow from rich encounters with texts and develop through supportive feedback, peer discussion, and revision.Creative writing workshops will draw on principles from ecological literature, a mode of thinking about writing that draws on observational and contemplative activities. We’ll pay attention to how our work with words can reflect complex interdependencies across the natural world. In Evergreen’s book arts studio, students will be introduced to basic hand bookbinding skills and experimental approaches that offer new relationships with books, words, and reading. Students will also participate in Evergreen’s “Writing Lab”, a six-part series led by librarian Stokely Towles that emphasizes free writing, drawing, and other creative practices.