This workshop series ran from Jan 15 – 30 2023.
When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive through everything. – Waymond Wang, Everything Everywhere All at Once
In this workshop series, Kandaka Editor-In-Chief Amuna Wagner invites you to creatively cultivate tools for strategic optimism (despite the pain of existence). Through writing exercises and literature-led discussion, we will draw inspiration from feminist authors and each other. In three two-hour long sessions throughout January (beginning in the second week of Jan), we will write foundations to build supportive communities through words. We will learn and grow from grief, and practice embracing abundance wholly and fully. Each week, Amuna invites you to engage with a reading before we convene online for collective, thematic free writes. You do not need to be a writer to participate, and you can write in your (any) language of choice.
The structure of this workshop will go as follows:
1. Writing Community (reading a snippet of Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater)
2. Writing Grief (reading a snippet of Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness)
3. Writing Abundance (reading TBA)
This workshop series is offered on a sliding price scale. The suggested contribution is $50. The minimum contribution is $15. Pay what you can and do not be discouraged to sign up with whatever it is you can offer!
Amuna Wagner is a writer, filmmaker and journalist. She studied International Relations and Arabic at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, with a special interest in decolonising processes and the politics of gender. In her art, Amuna explores the many ways through which we heal ourselves and others: ancestry, identity, pleasure activism, feminist spiritualities, and creative knowledge production. Amuna is Co-founder and Editor-In-Chief of Kandaka, a platform that imagines feminist futures at the intersection of art, pleasure, and activism. She has published articles and poetry on The Pan African Music Magazine, Amaka Studio, Egyptian Streets, Skin Deep, Meeting of Minds, shado mag, Rosa Mag and sweetthangzine. She has been facilitating creative writing for three years. Her most recent writing class, entitled Reading Feminism/Writing To Live, produced High Priestess in Low Tides, a zine from Cairo to the world.
Photo and artwork by Yael Wagner
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