Tickets: https://ticketpass.org/event/ECGKVA/speculative-fabulation-an-interspecies-creative-writing-workshop
Speculative fabulation – an interspecies creative writing workshop
There is so much in the air we breathe – pheromones, spores, viruses, bacteria – that we always speak as hybrid selves, as holobionts, as mouth pieces for the air itself.
So, who really speaks when we speak?
And how might we begin to work with words in a way that is more respectful of their aliveness, their density of matter, the way they feel in our bodies and mouths, and the places they arise from?
In this workshop at The Convivial, join writer, artist and facilitator Sophie Craven in a speculative creative writing workshop exploring interspecies communications, translations, and textual collaborations. Taking inspiration from Ursula le Guin’s therolinguistics and Donna Haraway’s notion of speculative fabulation, we will experiment with forms of worlding the world through our writing – all the while calling into question the notions of a lone human genius and authorship.
This workshop is suitable for anyone with a keen interest in ecology and environment, place-based research and arts, eco-imagination and storytelling. A reference list will be provided at the end of the workshop.
A loose structure:
12.45pm – Gather, group introduction
1 - 1.30pm – Seminar-style discussion
2 – 4pm – Exercises
4 - 4.30pm – Check out
Costs and tickets
There are just 8 spaces available for this half-day workshop. Please refer to the following suggestions when booking your place:
No spare income – pay what you can / reach out regarding other-than-financial forms of exchange
Low spare income – £7.50
Medium spare income – £15
High spare income – £25
Supporter ticket – £35+
Tea, coffee and a selection of fruit and cakes will be available for free, and a selection of soft drinks at a small cost.
Facilitator
Sophie is a writer, artist and facilitator based in Cornwall, UK. She graduated from SOAS university in 2016 with a BA in Arabic and Social Anthropology, and a specialisation in memory, imagination and heritage sites (with fieldwork taking place in the West Bank of Palestine).
She worked in learning and facilitation for seven years before completing her MA in Poetics of Imagination at Schumacher College / Dartington School of Arts in 2024. She also holds a CPD qualification in Trauma-Informed Practice from University of Sussex (2021).
Sophie’s research interests include mytho-poetics, folklore, ecology, systems thinking and psychology. She is currently in the process of writing her first novel, Places Strange, a semi-fictionalised life narrative exploring the boundaries and meeting places between the imaginal, the mythological and the psyche.