Making a fist

“We will know we have died when we can no longer make a fist.”

—Naomi Shihab Nye

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Write to witness. Write to remember. Write to liberate. The writing hand is a fist formed to harness the power of creative potential. Incorporating a variety of healing practices and writing prompts, we gather to cultivate community and celebrate our resilience, healing, and survival. Making a Fist is a self-care oriented writing workshop for people of color (POC).

I began offering this workshop series in 2017 as a healing space for BIPOC to come together and build community over their creative expression. Making a Fist is an ongoing, free, weekly writing workshop exclusively for BIPOC. I had felt a need to create and share a space that blended my healing and creative practice. I wanted to create an affirming container that I saw missing from most creative writing spaces that often focused on a disembodied, individualistic writing process.

Inspired by Naomi Shihab Nye’s work and countless other revolutionary writers, I created Making a Fist to share my particular writing methodology and ritual practices. This writing space incorporates a variety of healing practices and prompts for writing. It is a space that affirms and uplifts queer and trans folx; it honors earth-based practices and traditions; the wisdom of plants, the cosmos, and the ocean.

Each month's writing themes revolve around the lunar cycle and corresponding zodiac sign, herbs, a body system, somatic and/or sensory exercise. Together, we explore writing as an embodied ritual beyond the written word in order to tap into our radical imagination and affirm our capacity to heal.