A three week class to bring the poetic, personal, and political together for essays of self discovery and service

Taught by Cody Cook-Parrott with guest teachers Anna Fusco and Fariha Róisín

THIS CLASS WAS TAUGHT LIVE DEC 3-17 YOU ARE PURCHASING THE RECORDING OF THIS CLASS ”Cody is such a generous teacher and facilitator, and both guest speakers left me feeling inspired and renewed in my devotion to writing. Also, as someone who couldn't make any of the live sessions and watched them all in the form of recordings, I still felt an incredible sense of impact and community. 10/10 would recommend to anyone dabbling in personal essay who could use a boost of permission and inspiration.” - Student Testimonial

WHO IT’S FOR : This class is for artists, writers, cultural workers, and all ordinary people who want to start the practice of writing personal essays, cultivate new skills, and weave together the personal, poetic, and political. Due to the nature of this class, you are consenting to being in a room with many other personal stories which may include trauma, grief, death, joy, and other topics that will require you to be resourced in your own energy field.

⭐ FOR THE NEWSLETTER WRITER

⭐ FOR THE JOURNALIST

⭐ FOR THE PAINTER

⭐ FOR THE BOOK MAKER

⭐ FOR THE ZINESTER

💐 MY BELIEF AND HOPE IN THIS COURSE'S IMPACT : The personal essay is a vulnerable and courageous thing to put into the world. Whether it is in a weekly or monthly newsletter, part of a book collection, narrative non-fiction, in a zine, or a flyer you print out and spread around - we need personal stories to fill the world so we may all find the hidden parts of ourselves.

It can be confusing to know when it is time to engage with the public discourse around current events, the news, world atrocities, movement work, mutual aid, and more. It is my hope that this class makes you more comfortable with knowing when to chime in and when to sit out. When is your silence a part of the practice of generosity and when is it time to speak up. There is no right or wrong way to do this, and in this course we will each define our own values, devotions, and decision making tools.

WOVEN INTO EACH WEEK

This three week course is broken up into small chunks so that we don't get burnt out on learning new skills and inviting in new ways of thinking. Our Two hour classes min classes will each be filled with journaling prompts, list making activities, and unblocking exercises to get you to where you want to be - which is a personal pathway that we each define on our own.

♢ Each week we will check in with ourselves with 10 minutes of free writing to clear the mind and get the junk out of the way

♢ There will be a short lecture from Mar each week, drawing from their favorite writing books and resources for art making

♢ We will take plenty of time in the room to write together, identifying our values and our own individual systems and practices for thinking using different prompts and exercises

♢ We will practice channeling, unedited writing, and then move into the editing and revising process

♢ We will find the courage to hit send on our newsletters, book proposals, and big ideas

♢ In week two and three we will invite in guest lecturers who are going to knock your socks right off!

♢ This class isn't particularly interactive, each session will last aprox 90 min of instruction and writing with 30 min for questions and brainstorming

🖇 WEEK ONE : COMPILING THE PERSONAL

In our first week we will get clear on what it is we want to be writing about - what topics are off limits, what topics feel relevant, and getting clear on the why. We will take a values and devotions assessment to understand what it is we are each committed to bringing forth in our writing publicly and privately. We will chose a few topics to work on specifically during the run of this class. We will share these topics with the group to stay accountable to the work we want to do.

🖇 WEEK TWO : WEAVING IN THE POLITICAL

Guest teacher Fariha Róisín

We do not have to identify as activists and organizers to weave in our political and social values into our writing, using our various platforms and containers to bring voice and power to the things that we believe in. This week we will get clear on what we do and do not talk about and fold into the personal work we are doing. This can help in times of world crisis - you will have an outline for how to engage, what feels correct for your capacity, and how to gain the skills to push through the discomfort or fear of doing or saying something wrong.

Fariha will bring us through her own process of research and writing. You can take a look at her newsletter How to Cure A Ghost for the beautiful example of how she does this. She will also talk to us about how to separate our writing between short form

Fariha Róisín is a multidisciplinary artist, born in Ontario, Canada. She was raised in Sydney, Australia, and is based in Los Angeles, California. As a Muslim queer Bangladeshi, she is interested in the margins, liminality, otherness, and the mercurial nature of being. Her work has pioneered a refreshing and renewed conversation about wellness, contemporary Islam, and queer identities and has appeared in The New York Times, Al JazeeraThe GuardianViceVillage Voice, **and others. Read more here

🖇 WEEK THREE : THE DEPTH OF THE POETIC

Guest teacher Anna Fusco

This week we will look at writing about our relationships with other people and ourselves, bringing the personal, poetic, and political all together as one for the personal essay. We will integrate lists and poetry into our writing and make word lists to refer to when we write. We will talk about where to put your writing that is too personal for the public and how to decide what works and what doesn't.

Anna will bring us through her own process of writing about her relationship to her partner, her mother, and herself as well as her experience sharing that work publicly in her newsletter Unsupervised.

Anna Fusco (b. 1989, Rome, Italy) is an artist known for www.lordcowboy.com & some big drawings. Unsupervised is where her juicy, reader-supported love letters come out, three times a month. She currently lives on the central coast of California.

WHO IS TEACHING THIS CLASS

Consider this before you sign up - when signing up you are consenting to taking a class with a tornado person - This class is taught by Cody Cook-Parrott, an artist and writer, who has been self employed since 2013 and teaching online classes since 2017

Cody is not a therapist, mental health professional, or trauma informed facilitator

They are a hermit and a social person and a writer and an artist and a non binary person with a BFA in Dance.

They love to create fun and joyful containers for figuring out how to live in the world as an expert of nothing, a devotee to the mystery

Many of the lessons in this class are borrowed by and inspired by healing with ADHD, 12 step rooms, spiritual practice, The Artist’s Way, and more

See terms and services for all online class here

Whether you are neurodivergent, ADHD, have a mood disorder, chronic pain, the list goes on - how much access we have to our relationship with overwhelm, distraction, and shutting down is dependent on many factors. It is important to remember I am facilitating as an artist, not as a therapist or someone trained within modalities of mental health. What this means is you'll have to take what you like and leave the rest! Not everything will work for every person, this container will, however, empower you to have the information to mold and fit to your specific needs and desires. It will also help you determine the difference between when you are just beating yourself up for not "doing something you said you would do - and shifting into a space of awe and devotion. This part might activate you - that's good : may the pushing back guide you closer to yourself. See you there!