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Susan Goldsmith
Wooldridge, a poet/teacher
with California Poets in the Schools as
well as with adults, teachers and youth-at
risk, brings tools and techniques to a workshop
designed to make you feel excited about
writing (and teaching) poetry. Susan has
found that in a safe, free setting, surrounded
with words, most everyone can write poems
and they’re often extraordinary.
Susan starts us off playing with language.
First, she helps us create “wordpools,”
helping us see we’re all immersed
in an ocean of words we largely ignore.
We learn to create images, practice close
observation, begin to develop metaphor,
and gradually move into “dreamsense,”
where we can explore who we are, where we
come from and where we’re going.
Music, paintings and “word tickets”
are all used to help us enter the realm
where we begin to write poems that express
more than words can say, an act Allen Ginsberg
called “ordinary magic.”
Susan offers workshops ranging from two
hours to two days for people of all ages--at
conferences, in schools, businesses and
homes. In longer workshops we may gather
objects, write invocations and meet with
our shadows.
Susan’s book poemcrazy: freeing your
life with words was published in May 1996
by Clarkson Potter/Random House. The hardcover
edition went into five printings, was selected
by Quality Paperback Book Club and Writer’s
Digest Book Club. The paper back edition
came out in April 1997 and is now in a thirteenth
printing. Poemcrazy is a Book Sense 76 Pick
(Independent Bookstores) and though written
for adults, is on the New York Public Library
List of Outstanding Books for teens.
Bathing with ants, a chapbook of Susan’s
poems was published in 2004 by Bear Star
Press.
Susan recently completed a series of workshops
in libraries throughout California sponsored
by Poets and Writers and the Los Angeles
Center for the Book. She’s been invited
to do a similar tour to reach even more
libraries this spring and summer.
SCHEDULE
Hello everyone. Thanks for checking in.
Keep your eye on the schedule because more workshops will be added soon.
(free unless fee listed)
All ages welcome
Sat. March 13, 2010
10:30 am to 12:30 pm
Talk/workshop FREE
(and open to the public)
Writer’s Forum
All Saints Episcopal Church
2150 Benton Dr. (& Quartz Hill Rd.)
Redding, Ca.
Contact: Sharon Owen
sharonowen@citilink.net
530-547-5303
March 25, 2010 FREE
Thurs. 6:30 to 8:30 pm
Willows Library, Willows, Ca.
Contact Sandra Hobbs:
shobbs@cityofwillows.org
530-934-5156 x 132
April 3, 2010 FREE
Sat. 1 to 3 pm
Alameda County Library
200 Civic Plaza, Dublin, Ca. 94568
Contact Lee Jouthas:
Ljouthas@aclibrary.org
925-803-7266
April 17/18 (must register)
Sat. a.m & p.m sessions
Narrative nonfiction/ poem writing
Pleasanton Poetry, Prose & Art Festival
Contact David Wright:
Dawright@sbcglobal.net
or John Kallio:
donnojuan@aol.com
April 24, 2010 FREE
Sat. session
Colusa Library
Contact Wendy Burke:
wburke@countyofcolusa.org
530-458-0372
May 1, 2010 FREE
Sat. 1 to 4 pm
Yuba County Library, Marysville
302 Second Street
Contact Kathleen Stewart:
Kstewart@co.yuba.ca.us
530-749-7340
May 4-5 2010 (please register)
Spokane& Colville Washington
Contact Suzanne McCurdy:
smccurdy@iel.spokane.edu
509-685-2120 x 6710
or Jim Mohr/Kathleen Thayer:
509-279-6045
More workshops to be scheduled soon,
Likely in New York City,
Santa Cruz Mountains, Ca.
And Ashland, Oregon
STAY IN TOUCH!
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Susan has a unique ability
to reach people in her writing and
her workshops, helping them feel free
to express themselves in new ways.
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Exhilarating, playful and profound. Opens a tremendous creative
frontier for people.
-Kathlyn Hendrix, author of Conscious Loving and The Conscious
Heart.
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I didn’t want to say goodbye to that day. -William,
SED 5th grader, Chico.
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Sitting and writing poems with Susan is like taking
a lid off a jar.
-Laura. Chico.
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What she drew out of us in a brief period was astounding.
-Patrick Gleason, Ca. Reading and Lit Project Workshop.
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