It’s the new term and it’s time to make space for creative work! Join us to work on your own creative-critical practice.

For many creative practitioners, one of the biggest challenges we face is finding time to set aside for our creative work. So often, something seems to just “come up” and we find our work delayed in the face of responsibilities that seem more pressing.

One way around this conundrum is to schedule creative time on your calendar — which is precisely what this event aims to do! Join us for a relaxed online co-working session. We will open with brief introductions and some discussion of intentions and goals. We will then work in companionable silence for an hour on a creative project of our choosing (you can write, draw, crochet, weld - pick your practice!). After the work hour has elapsed, we will all check back in to chat briefly about how it went and share some laughs!

This online workshop will lead participants through the process of creating a three line haiku adaptation of a medieval text of their choice which will then be illustrated in the form of a single page comic. Creating adaptations invites us to re-think a well-known work from an entirely new angle and can heighten our own awareness of the ways in which we read, understand, and even teach a text. The writing and drawing exercises taught in this workshop only require readily available supplies and can be easily repurposed by participants in their own classrooms, either alone or in tandem. No skill or prior experience in drawing or writing poetry required! Please join with paper, pens, and sticky notes (or equivalent) to create your modular haiku comic.

This is a workshop for any medievalist who wants to learn a fun new way to share their expertise. In his book The Comic Toolbox, writer John Vorhaus argues that ‘the difference between a class clown and a class nerd is that the class clown tells jokes everyone gets while the class nerd tells jokes that only he gets'. The basic premise of this workshop is: why can't we do both? 

In this 90-minute workshop, you'll learn some simple skills that will help you turn any bit of your medievalist expertise into a one-liner (or two-liner). To prepare:

• Please read the two very short handouts provided (which will help you hit the ground running when it comes to jokewriting). These will be circulated in advance of the event to those who sign up.

• Make sure that you have a pen and paper handy on the day (ideally a big piece of paper!).

Please note that this workshop is limited to 8 participants on a first-come first-serve basis.

To secure your place for ‘Jokewriting for Medievalists with Mary C. Flannery’, submit your email address below. Please note that this event is only open to Guild members (so if you have not joined yet, make sure that you do so!)

The workshop is now fully booked. Stay tuned for more workshops in the future!