24Pearlstreet Workshops
‘“Who are you?’ said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ‘I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.’”
—Lewis Carroll (from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)
A chimera is a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve. In this workshop we will consider writing that has the head of one and the body of another. How can writing swell and then go frail, grow wooly and then grow smooth. How can a poem grow the legs of a story, and a story the eyes of a poem? We will attempt writings who forget themselves midway, who speak multiple languages, and who possess kaleidoscopic vision. Open to all levels. Open to anyone who wishes to make the impossible possible. We will read Donald Barthelme, Gertrude Stein, Tina Chang, Mary Ruefle, Lydia Davis, Franz Kafka, and Ocean Vuong (among others).
Biography
Sabrina Orah Mark is the author of the poetry collections, The Babies & Tsim Tsum. Wild Milk, her first book of fiction, is recently out from Dorothy, a publishing project. For The Paris Review she writes a monthly column on fairytales and motherhood entitled HAPPILY. She lives, writes, and teaches in Athens, Georgia.