An April Vacation Filled With Costumes and Dreams (and Writing)

Here at the Bigfoot Research Institute, April vacation week can mean only one thing: writing workshops! This year’s selection ranged from an in-depth exploration of dialogue to a contemplation of how our bodies act as homes. With the help of some really excellent hats, students and volunteers embodied chickens and witches and superheroes to create unique and compelling dialogue. They learned about themselves through a workshop with poet Black Venus, coming up with new definitions of words like “body” and “home.” They wrote extra-short short stories under the guidance of our intern Mandy, carefully paring down their thoughts until only six words remained.

We love vacation-week workshops because there are so many new and different genres featured. In addition to fiction, poetry, and personal creative nonfiction, we had a workshop on journalism led by author and Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr. This allowed students to write about real and concrete things they had observed in their lives–and then to turn around and write about the worlds of their dreams in another workshop the next day!

Some of our favorite six-word stories:
“Elevator fortress. It rained. I awoke.”
“Future: discovers thief. Past: gets murdered.”
“Weird dog launches fish. Death-yodle.”

Thanks to all of our workshop leaders, volunteers, and participants!