The Oakland "Crazy Child" Creative Workshops

CORONA VIRUS UPDATE:
Take advantage of social distancing by focusing on creative endeavors! These workshops are a wonderful way to stay inspired and connected from the safety of your home. They will now be taking place via Zoom. Please email clive@matsonpoet.com or call 510-508-5149 for information on how to join us.

Are you busy? Too busy to do the writing you love to do?

Do weeks go by without you putting pen to paper in a creative way?

Well you are not alone. Join the 2-Busy-2-Write writers' group. We meet every week on Tuesday evening to be inspired by prompts, to write and share if we wish.

These are mini Crazy Child workshops, where we allow ourselves to write freely without the overbearing presence of our inner editor. We will meet from 7:00 to 9:00 pm every Tuesday night. Clive will introduce an exercise and then leave us to write in peace for a whole hour. Then we will share, on a voluntary basis, for the second hour.

The suggested donation is $10, paid via PayPal. It’s drop in so you don’t need to reserve a space ahead of time, but it is appreciated if you do. When you RSVP the link will become visible.

The first 2-Busy-2-Write workshop was held on April 1st, 2014. How is that for an auspicious start date? They were held every other Tuesday until last year, when they became weekly.

Clive began his writing career among the Beat Generation in 1960s New York City, mentored by Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Diane Di Prima, who published his first book, Mainline to the Heart. Clive’s foundation in Modernism, and his MFA from Columbia University, have supported a 40+ year career as one of the premier creative writing teachers that is unrivaled. He is among the last writers who lived the experience of the culmination of Modernism and will bring that experience to the workshops. You will be the creator as Clive elicits your response to the prompts that will unleash your own writer’s muse. And you will get feedback and advice from the participants with far more understanding and support than is usual in writing classes.

Check out Clive's website, www.matsonpoet.com to learn more about Clive and his writing.

CORONA VIRUS UPDATE:
This workshop will now be taking place via Zoom. Please phone Clive at 510-508-5149 or email him at clive@matsonpoet.com for more information on the workshops. He'll answer your questions, ask a few of his own and give directions. And perhaps give you an exercise to get you up to speed.

Take advantage of social isolation by focusing on creative endeavors! These workshops are a wonderful way to stay inspired and connected from the safety of your home. If you're curious about writing, now is the time to join our workshops.

We have openings in two groups, one meeting Wednesday evenings 6:30 to 9:30 pm and the other Friday mornings 10 am to 1 pm. Until this pandemic passes we will be meeting via Zoom. You are invited to come to a meeting, for free, and find out how well it works for you.

These groups have been meeting for forty years. We combine insights from Dorothea Brandt's Becoming a Writer (1934) and Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers (1973). We use inspired guidance from Diane di Prima's "Rant" from Pieces of a Song (2001), which proposes that we, each of us, come into this world with our own cosmology.

This cosmology is a birthright and needs no alteration. Our writer's journey involves finding our view of the world, giving it respect, developing it, and expressing it in its own terms.

Much inspired writing comes from these workshops. Many writers have opened doors into huge arenas of vivid stories, poems, essays, and novels they had no idea exist. Many of our writers have become published, including an American Book Award winner.

Why do these groups work? Because we embrace the creative unconscious as the source of our inspiration, in accordance with Carl Jung's vision. And we give it simple appreciation.

In these groups your first drafts, even very rough drafts, are read as portals into vivid, energetic writing. Our job is to help you go through the portals and gain confidence that you are the right person to do this - to delve into your own creativity. Your unique way is the way that's best for your material.

Clive began his writing career among the Beat Generation in 1960s New York City, mentored by Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Diane Di Prima, who published his first book, Mainline to the Heart. Clive’s understanding of the current template – from earning an MFA at Columbia University in 1989 – plus his foundation in Modernism have supported a forty-plus year career as one of our premier writing teachers. He is among the last writers to experience the culmination of Modernism in the Beat Generation and he brings that knowledge to the workshops. You will be the creator as Clive elicits your response via prompts that will unleash your own personal muse. Clive will give you feedback and understanding far beyond what can be found in other writing classes.

As one participant has written, "Thank you, Clive, for creating and holding the sacred space where decomposition of creative self-doubt can occur, and up-lifting, cultivation and refinement of one’s voice can rise up."

Honoring the Source of Creativity,
Clive Matson

Author of Let The Crazy Child Write! (1998)

Take advantage of social distancing by focusing on creative endeavors! These workshops are a wonderful way to stay inspired and connected from the safety of your home. If you've wanted to join Clive before but were hampered by distance, now is your chance to join the community via Zoom!

In this workshop we look into the natural organics of your poem. What is the poem's intention, where does it reveal its core, where does it turn, and how does it work through to its conclusion? The creative unconscious is the main source and driver. We shape this primal energy with the template in use today, the Beat aesthetic and the Modernist aesthetic -- which are all three in full operation. How are they influencing what you do? Which should be engaged more, and which less, to help your work come to fruition? Clive Matson's thorough background in all three aesthetics gives this class its acuity and its power. The goal is to recognize your gifts, be confident of them, and bring your true self into full flower on the page. We start with appreciation and support of your gifts, however you choose to reveal them.

This workshop will now be taking place via zoom. Please email clive@matsonpoet.com or call Clive at 510-508-5149 for information on how to join us. MeetUp is not allowing the correct Zoom link to show up, so here is the correct link. Call or text me at 6:45 if you are unable to enter the meeting. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82133590301

CORONA VIRUS UPDATE:

Take advantage of social distancing by focusing on creative endeavors! These workshops are a wonderful way to stay inspired and connected from the safety of your home. They will now be taking place via Zoom and an RSVP will give you the link to join.

If you're curious about writing, now is the time to join our workshops.
We have openings in two groups, one meeting Wednesday evenings 6:30 to 9:30 pm and the other Friday mornings 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. In our healthy future we will meet at my home in Temescal District, Oakland as well as long distance participants online. You are invited to come to a workshop, for free, and find out how well it works for you.

These groups have been meeting for forty years. We combine insights from Dorothea Brandt's Becoming a Writer (1934) and Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers (1973). We use inspired guidance from Diane di Prima's "Rant" from Pieces of a Song (2001), which proposes that we, each of us, come into this world with our own cosmology.

This cosmology is a birthright and needs no alteration. Our writer's journey involves finding our view of the world, giving it respect, developing it, and expressing it in its own terms.

Much inspired writing comes from these workshops. Many writers have opened doors into huge arenas of vivid stories, poems, essays, and novels they had no idea exist. Many of our participants have become published authors, including one American Book Award winner.

Why do these groups work? Because we embrace the creative unconscious as the source of our inspiration, in accordance with Carl Jung's vision. And we give it simple appreciation.

In these groups your first drafts, even very rough drafts, are read as portals into vivid, energetic writing. Our job is to help you go through the portals and gain confidence that you are the right person to do this -- to delve into your own creativity. Your unique way is the way that's best for your material.

Clive began his writing career among the Beat Generation in 1960s New York City, mentored by Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Diane Di Prima, who published his first book, Mainline to the Heart. Clive’s foundation in Modernism, and his MFA from Columbia University, have supported a 40+ year career as one of the premier creative writing teachers that is unrivaled. He is among the last writers who lived the experience of the culmination of Modernism and will bring that experience to the workshops.

You will be the creator as Clive elicits your response to the prompts that will unleash your own writer’s muse. And you will get feedback and advice with far more understanding and support than is usual in writing classes.

As one participant has written, "Thank you, Clive, for creating and holding the sacred space where decomposition of creative self-doubt can occur, and up-lifting, cultivation and refinement of one’s voice can rise up."

Phone Clive at 510-508-5149 or email him at clive@matsonpoet.com for more information on the workshops. Check out Clive's website, www.matsonpoet.com to learn more about Clive and his writing.