Registration is now open for this 8-week creative writing workshop with Kelly DuMar at Unity Farm Sanctuary in Sherborn, MA! Writers of all levels are welcome. We will meet weekly to focus on generating new drafts of poetry and prose in any chosen genre, inspired by your personal photos of all types. We will explore both personal insight and craft elements generated by your photos using Kelly's Guide to Writing Photo Inspired Poetry & Prose. The unique environment of Unity Farm, the animals and access to nature, will be an added element as we explore, through writing and sharing, what it means to offer and experience sanctuary.

REGISTRATION IS LIMITED - Your Deposit of $50 will hold your place.

If you prefer to pay by check: Send $50 deposit made out to Kelly DuMar, P.O. Box 297, Sherborn, MA 01770. E-mail kellydumar@gmail.com to let me know.

About the Workshop

The photos we save and the photos we take show what we care about and hope to preserve, what moves and mystifies us, the people, places, stories and experiences that bring meaning into our lives. In this workshop, we’ll write creatively from personal photos that arrest our attention and unpack why they do. Writing stories from photos allows us to approach our pictures as works of art – no matter the quality of the photo, we can approach them with an artist’s perception and awareness of powerful hidden meanings and revelations worthy of development into creative prose and poetry. Writing from photos allows us to express the truth of what we feel - and know - and haven’t said, as we capture the beauty and deeper meaning of an image. Each participant will bring, weekly, 1-3 photos to explore, as we shape images into poetry and prose that reveal personalities, identity, relationships, conflicts, and universal truth and beauty. Participants may choose to bring photos specifically relating to current or prospective projects in poetry or prose. 

About Kelly DuMar

Kelly is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from Sherborn. She’s author of two poetry chapbooks, All These Cures, (2014) and Tree of the Apple, (2017). Her poems, prose and photos are published in many literary journals including Tupelo Quarterly, Poydras, Tiferet, Kindred, Bellevue Literary Review and more.

Kelly’s plays are produced around the US and are published by dramatic publishers. She founded and produces the Our Voices Festival of Women Playwrights at Wellesley College, now in its 12th year, and leads a variety of workshops for writers across the US, including: The Mass. Poetry Festival, The International Women’s Writing Guild, The Power of Words Conference, the New England Theatre Conference, and Playback Theatre North America.  Kelly’s on the board & faculty of The International Women’s Writing Guild and produces their Summer Conference Play Lab as well as the annual Boston Writing From Your Life Retreat, now in its 4th year. She also founded a weekly writing workshop for women, the Farm Pond Writer’s Collective, now in its 4th year. Kelly blogs her daily nature photos from where she lives on the Charles River at #NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream. She looks forward to establishing an ongoing writing community in the inspirational, beautiful and unique environment of Unity Farm Sanctuary.

E-mail kellydumar@kellydumar.com if you have any questions!