Intro to Erasure with Jennifer Steinorth

Monday, Oct. 24, 2022, 6-9pm CST, in-person at Gemini Ink
Instructor: Jennifer Steinorth
Nonmember: $100; Member: $85; Student/Vet/Mil $75

Are you plagued by stress, fatigue and increased screen time? Many artists and writers feel blocked. Working with found materials can help penetrate blocks and reclaim agency. Through erasure, we are able to take existing text and blackout, erase, and obscure what is already written to create a whole new text that talks back to history, institutions, news media, departed souls, and any force that threatens to silence us.   

This introductory workshop will briefly examine powerful erasures and what makes them work. Then we’ll jump in and get our hands dirty.  Writers will leave with:

• A better understanding of how erasure works and the various methods of creating it
• Improvisational erasure exercises they can repeat on their own.  
• Things to keep in mind when seeking publication. 

This workshop is open to writers of all skill levels who are interested in using text to create impactful art.

Jennifer Steinorth’s books include Her Read, A Graphic Poem, recipient of the Foreword Reviews Bronze Prize for Poetry, and A Wake with Nine Shades, both from Texas Review Press. Their poems appear in Beloit Poetry Journal, Black Warrior Review, The Cincinnati Review, Mid-American Review, Missouri Review, New Ohio Review, Pleiades, Plume, Rhino, and TriQuarterly. A poet, educator, interdisciplinary artist, and licensed builder, she has received grants from Vermont Studio Center, the Sewanee Writers Conference, Community of Writers, and the MFA for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She is a lecturer at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

Steinorth began her artistic life as a dancer, practicing and performing with the Houston Ballet, the School of the Pennsylvania Ballet, and Interlochen Arts Academy. For 15 years, she was president and lead designer for a design-build construction company specializing in environmentally-responsible homes; their architectural work has been featured in Fine Homebuilding and other national journals. Their visual art has appeared at the Dennos Museum, Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, and elsewhere. She moonlights as an architectural designer and building consultant when the wind is just so. Her website is https://www.jennifersperrysteinorth.com.