She is Marion Oleander, the girl with the sea-green eye shadow, the huge blue eyes, and the overarching ability to control everyone around her. Just not herself.

“Join Andrea Thompson to overcome one of the most common fears: PUBLIC SPEAKING.

In this FREE workshop, participants will learn strategies for effective public speaking, whether reading their creative writing pieces before a live audience or doing an in-class presentation. Using the skills of spoken word poetry, this interactive workshop will give participants tips on how to approach public speaking with confidence, and create presentations that are both inspiring and effective. Learn techniques for overcoming stage fright while exploring the art of spoken word with one of the country’s most well known practitioners.

*Participants are asked to bring with them at least one piece of their own writing to share at the workshop, as well as a pen and notebook.

When: Saturday, March 24, 2012; 2 pm – 4 pm
Where: 170 Bloor Street West, Suite 804″

I probably should have made the youth site more aware to our little group (that seems to be finally expanding), but visit the site if you want to take a look at some of these writing workshops.

I will also be posting a link in the near future that also contains details for a play-writing workshop that I know a certain number of you will enjoy.

There are also a number of fun blogs to read, if they strike your fancy.

Enjoy the remnants of the night.

READ ON

1. What a great week! Between Catherine and Rosina, you had some incredible workshops. Keep breathing life into the work that they helped inspire.

2. Mark the dates for the upcoming workshops. Rosina is back with us on Tuesday, so make sure you’re rested and ready to bring your energy and voices out for her.

3. Oops, did I say there would only be two? Okay, then, leave it at this: the third memo is to have a great weekend with your family and friends. Ciao.

Fiction workshops with Catherine Graham
February 13, 28, and March 6 (3:30-4:30pm)

Poetry/Spoken Word workshops with Rosina Kazi
February 16, 21, March 8 (3:30-4:30pm)

The South Etobicoke/High Park showcase will be at the Assembly Hall Theatre on March 26. (For this event, you are asked to arrive between 5-5:30pm, and the showcase will begin at 6pm, lasting approximately an hour and a half. I will give you more details on the publishing opportunities soon.)

I realize some of you are hearing about this a little late, and I need to update our email contact list soon. If you’d like to show up to Monday’s session at around 3:15, we’ll be able to go over some of these other details.

See you Monday in Room 219. Bring your pens, paper, and creativity…

The beat lays lame

The heart falls hardened.

Hard kiss from the cold, the wind speaks

Long for inheritance,

Tis the song of the meek.

Voices fall silent, hit home on deaf ears

Expression is the essence

Complexity fears.

Silence a sacrifice, the soul endures

Rendering no remedy,

It re-occurs.

A soul showered by shadow, lost in night

Loathing the darkness,

Sun shines to bright.

Longing for the leap, waiting to take the risk,

Blinded by beauty,

Eyes escape to miss.

So to take the step, the soul grips tightly,

When one looks into your eyes,

It brings terror to them nightly.

Grasp the gaze of the noon sun, daytime deliberates

Your eyes would blind me further,

My soul your soul could liberate.

Well thinking about mine the other day, scared me half to death

Just being asked “what do you want to do when your older…?” makes me shiver at the thought because, I HAVE NO CLUE

Being told today that what I do now can affect my outcome in the FUTURE is a little hard to absorb fully. I want to do well in life, but I don’t want to know right now, I want to have some fun and keep my childhood a little longer.

AND THAT IS JUST THE ACADEMIC SIDE…….

My athletics is a whole other story

Have you ever had 14 people depend on your success to reach theirs?

Go into a game hoping you won’t let your friends down?

Or have you been told that “you better work hard now, or else your FUTURE in the sport, as limited as the opportunities may be, might not be there anymore?

But what if all my work is for nothing….. I may be optimistic and out every waking moment into a game I love and hold so dearly, but what if this game leaves me behind and breaks my heart?

So with my “FUTURE” being decided with every move I make, losing a FUTURE job because i didn’t do the extra work in a subject just to have a little fun with my friends. Or the possibility of playing the game I love and have spent my life working towards for a living, ignores me because I didn’t have that one extra practice. 

So I ask you, what should I do?
Before I go crazy…..

then opaqued
by the fallen
marching on through the present,

to eternity.

He is enchanted,
He enchants.
His eyes glaze over,
mine too…
mesmerized by the layers and layers of time
swept into a hurricaine of souls,
ours now entangled within the knot of
beautiful and tragic,
forgotten and celebrated
history
in which we are involuntary members

He saved me
from monotony
from the spirits
from myself.

We bask

in history
in mine
and his
and in ours

I’m enchanted.
But not by those
rogue, dancing spirits
anymore

The fog lifts

and
all I see is

you

“Feelings are gross”

Why would anyone ever think that?
Maybe she was trying to be cute or something but even then…
How could anyone possibly verbalize even the thought?

From where I stand, it’s lack of feelings that we should be afraid of.

Yet, from a careless, fleeting camp friend, I heard those words escape her mouth after pouring out my entire summer to her. I was naked and vulnerable and…

“it’s better if you don’t have them. You’re so naive”

Yeah, but you’re so jaded. And what are you? Like 12? Seriously.
What? How can mindless intimacy be better? Why numb yourself at such a young age?

How can she achieve such nonchalance in regard to the singlemost important event of my life?

So I brush aside my bangs, laugh and say,

“Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point”, with a carefree smile, and an affirming one from her in exchange, the bond sealed.

when really,
feelings are everything to me.