It's hard to believe that I've never taken a class at Kearny Street Workshop, but there you go: I've never taken a class at Kearny Street Workshop. Until this weekend, that is. And it is SO good. Which leaves me to wonder, of course, if it's ALWAYS so good. I already know that the answer, though, is no. Because there are too many variables at play. First, the instructor must be wonderful (generous, brilliant, accessible, truly present), the space must be conducive to creativity (clean, pleasant, generally distraction-free, with natural light, and let's see, what else...white walls), and—this is the trickiest thing of all—the group must be a pitch-perfect mix of writers.
All three of those heady requirements have been met by the workshop I'm attending (today was day 1), and this despite the fact that the other half of the space at PariSoMa was taken over by something called the Arse Elektronika festival. "You might walk out of this room and see, I don't know, robots fucking or something," said our teacher. See why I so enjoy her? Her name, by the way, is Minal Hajratwala.
I won't continue, as one of our group agreements is "confidentiality." (Do you think this post breaches it? I hope not) I will just add, though, that it helps so very much that your Nesting Ground Mistress is an old lady now, as this workshop would have been wasted on the young version of me. And whaddayaknow: that confession works well with the theme of the workshop, which is—of course it is—"Lost & Found."
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