Writing in Spring
June 3 and it will almost be summer ...
Writing As A Wisdom Project will gather again in Greenfield on Saturday June 3 from 9:00 – 5:00.
Space will be limited so please register soon if you would like to attend.
Combining meditation in the Zen tradition with the practice of imaginative writing, Writing As A Wisdom Project invites intimate and creative study of the mind. Engaging playfully with language, we write together from prompts and read aloud, listen, and respond to one another’s words. Our writings and responses are explorations, and our conversations are based in imaginative insight rather than craft or critique. The day is appropriate for participants at any level of literary or meditation experience. Meditation guidance will be offered as needed.
Please bring paper and pens, even if you are accustomed to composing on a keyboard. Please arrive by 8:45 to get settled, so that we can begin promptly at 9:00. We will take a break for lunch and everyone is encouraged to bring something (vegetarian) to share with others.
A contribution of $20 is suggested. Any donation is welcome, but is not required.
For further details and to register, please leave a comment here, or email Catherine at neighborhoodzen@gmail.com.
While I’m updating, here’s a generous little feature from The Missouri Review’s new Substack, DIG —
Catherine Gammon is a fiction writer and Soto Zen priest, ordained in 2005 by Tenshin Reb Anderson Roshi in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. Before beginning residential Zen training at San Francisco Zen Center’s Tassajara and Green Gulch Farm, Catherine served on the MFA faculty of the University of Pittsburgh.
Catherine’s current novel The Martyrs, The Lovers is available now on Bookshop, as well as at White Whale Bookstore and Riverstone Squirrel Hill. Her previous novels are China Blue (2021), Sorrow (2013), and Isabel Out of the Rain (1991), and her shorter fiction has appeared in literary journals for many years. Catherine will be reading at Riverstone with poet Barbara Edelman on Thursday May 4 at 7:00 p.m., details here.
After serving as Shuso (head student) at Green Dragon Temple/Green Gulch Farm in 2010, Catherine led retreats and gave teachings in Zen and writing in the U.K., in Brooklyn, in Pittsburgh, in Massachusetts, and at SFZC’s Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. She lives again in Pittsburgh, where in 2017 she started Neighborhood Zen.