Workshop
Magical Realism and the Power of Place: From Hauntings to Home, Using Magic and Myth to Craft Powerful Poetry & Prose
**Please note all times are listed in EST**
Come with Khalisa on this fantastical journey that blends the magical and the real. Where people have wings, horses can talk, and messages appear on the walls. Magical realism is an honored tradition that dates back centuries, and has been used by some of literature's greatest writers to break and bend what the mind believes as possible, particularly by Black and Indigenous writers. In this writing intensive workshop, we will walk through how place, setting, and innate objects can come alive in your poetry with magic and wonder. Using literary greats, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Angela Carter, Franni Choi, Ben Okri, Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Isabel Allende we'll look at examples that span diverse cultures and traditions. Transform your writing by leaving the natural world and exploring the supernatural and how it enhances and illuminates poetry and story.
Khalisa Rae is an award-winning storyteller, poet, and activist, and the author of the acclaimed poetry collection, Ghost in a Black Girls Throat, the chapbook, Real Girls, Have Real Problems,and the sold-out play production, 7+ Deadly Sins of Being a Woman. As a arts and humanities historian and lover of Black Southern narratives, stories and poetry have been featured in the Cameron Art Museum, Southern Humanities Review Anthology, NC Museum of History and more. A lifelong advocate for women's rights and steward and literary education, Khalisa has taught on both the collegiate level, public school, and is a former Catapult instructor. As a trained performer and playwright, her powerful work has been featured in countless literary journals and magazines such as Pinch, PANK, Autumn House, Jezebel, Bitch Media, Blavity, NBC-BLK. Her powerful feminist poetry has landed her an Appalachian Arts and Entertainment Award, a Gwendolyn Brooks Prize, numerous Pushcart nominations, among countless others. Khalisa Rae is currently the founder of Think in Ink: BIPOC Literary Collective, Women Speak reading series, and the forthcoming YA novel in verse, Unlearning Eden. Find her online at khalisarae.com.
