Writing with Herbs w/ Amanda Andrei

WHAT: A four-week generative online collaboration

WHEN: Begins Saturday, September 18th, 2021—just in time for the autumnal equinox. This class is hosted on our rich interactive online platform, WetInk. The class is broken into four weeks, and within those weeks you go at your own pace. In addition, there will be two zoom meetings—one at the start of class on 9/18 and one at the close of class on 10/15. These meetings will occur from 12-130pm Pacific.

ACCESS: You can buy a seat in this workshop at our standard rate of $350, but this offering is also available at a sliding scale to anyone who inquires. Please reach out to Daniel Elder at registration@corporealwriting.com. Payment plans are also available.

Writing With Herbs

Leaves, flowers, buds, roots, seeds – herbs are amazing allies that can support, invigorate, and inspire us as writers. In this hands-on, experimental class around the Autumn Equinox, you will choose an herb, use it to generate work, and reflect on your writing process. What can a rose teach us about boundaries? What can rosemary teach us about memory? How can you honor the land and native plants where you reside now? What are your ancestral herbs – the plants from your parents’ and grandparents’ homelands – and how can you be in relationship with them on your writing journey?

In four weeks, we’ll do some basic herbalism exercises to introduce ourselves to our herbs. We’ll consider the “personality” of an herb and what that means for character-creating, as well as the landscapes and geographies where they came and how that informs setting and desire. We’ll use prompts from playwriting, cartooning, dreamwork, and somatics to get to know your herb and your process, thereby gaining a deeper self-awareness and appreciation for how plants can support both you and your writing.

Week 1 — Meeting and Remembering Your Herbs

Week 2 — Geography and Landscape

Week 3 — Dreams, Spells, and Recipes

Week 4 — Conversations with Herbs

Originally from Virginia/Washington D.C., Amanda L. Andrei is an award-winning playwright currently residing in Los Angeles. Her plays are epic, irreverent, medicinal, inspired by her parents’ homelands of the Philippines and Romania, and somehow always manage to feature a magical tree or mystical forest. Full-lengths include Mama, I wish I were silver; Culture Night; Lena Passes By; Hecuba; and Black Sky. Her work has been developed by Vagrancy Theatre, Echo Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Playwrights Arena, La MaMa, Artists at Play, Madison New Works Lab, Relative Theatrics, Bucharest Inside the Beltway, In Full Color, and others. She is also a folk herbalist who uses herbal medicine and cooking to take care of herself, her family, and her communities. She has studied herbalism and ethnomedicine with teachers at Ancestral Apothecary, Green Wisdom Herbal Studies, and Indigescuela. Say hello at www.amandalandrei.com!