The Creativity Workshop has helped writers of all genres jumpstart and renew their imagination.
We will teach you ways to keep your writing fresh and exciting to you.
In this workshop you will generate both new work and seeds for the work you are in the midst of creating. We use many different techniques to help you find your way through the novel, essay, poem, memoir, or script you are writing or hope to write. In The Creativity Workshop you will be doing free writing, writing from guided visualizations, collaborative writing, journaling and memoir work and even some rudimentary drawing, collage and photography.
We go back and forth between writing and visual exercises and oral exercises because they stimulate different parts of the mind and body. We believe that getting out of your writers' head for a few moments and into a bit of art and oral storytelling keeps the writing from getting stale. It also combats the kind of perfectionism that keeps you from writing at all.
You will find all our tools extremely beneficial in helping you outrun the inner critic that doesn't give your imagination a moment's rest. When you can escape over-rational thinking in art, it allows you to discover many unexplored images and themes.
A typical Creativity Workshop will have people from all over the world and from many disciplines with one thing in common--the love of the process of creative work. Class time will be a combination of teachers' talks, individual exercises, and group work. Class atmosphere is nurturing, inspiring, and fun. Many people have found The Creativity Workshop to be a life-changing experience.
Many writers have credited writing their first books, scripts, and memoirs to taking our class. Shelley Berc, co-Instructor and director of The Creativity Workshop, has a great deal of experience teaching writers. She is a novelist and playwright and was a professor in the University of Iowa's International Writing Program and Playwrights Workshop for several years.
“As a creative writing Master's student, the Workshop in Bruges allowed me to explore my creativity through free-form drawing, storytelling, observation, and automatic writing. As a result of the class activities, I am more connected with myself and the world around me. This experience has given me new outlets for my poetic soul. Thank you Shelley and Alejandro for being such nurturing souls.”
