Creative Bridges 2023 - August Update

With less than eight weeks to go now preparations are well into the techncal production phase now and our planning team is getting excited to see you at the conference.  We are delighted that Helen iles has joined the planning group bringing a wealth of expertise as a film maker and writing practitioner.  Helen will help us bring you teasers of some of this year’s presentations.

If you have forgotten how good our last conference was in 2021, then take a look at the short film we made from the recordings.  The enthusiasm is palpable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVCtRttoxKU

The schedule for the conference’s two days is available to see on the conference website: https://creativebridges.site. There are still a couple of sessions to be confirmed, but you can begin planning your weekend and getting the snacks in now. In the meantime how about these sessions to look out for?

Jennifer Bertrand’s presentationThe Self as Chambered Nautilus: Discovering the Healing Power of Writing as a Graduate Student.

Jennifer uses an autoethnographic approach to analyze my own poetry, fiction, and nonfiction writing produced in the Athabasca University Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies program. With reference to dialogical self theory (DST), I examine how psychology and writing studies intersect as a way of understanding the effects of creative, expressive, and reflective writing, as well as the pedagogical possibilities when personal writing is used in an academic context to support graduate student wellbeing, enrich research, and cultivate academic potential.

Dr Mari Alschuler’s workshop: Exploring Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation through Poetry Therapy.

Expressive arts therapists and mental health professionals engage a wide variety of people, some who live within the LGBTQIA2S+ umbrella. Using a cross-section of poems by queer writers, this interactive workshop asks participants to consider their own intersecting identities, gender role expectations, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

Kate Potts’s presentation: Among the Pretenders: exploring imposter syndrome through creative writing

Drawing on this research, Kate will examine and discuss definitions and constructions of imposter syndrome and imposter feelings. Focusing on extracts from the work in progress, it will explore the ethical and procedural challenges of working with others’ words, as well as encouraging participants to interrogate ideas around class, race, gender, belonging, authenticity and achievement.

The open mic event was a revelrous highlight of the conference’s Saturday night in 2021. A great chance to drop your voice into the conference, the open mic welcomes three minute readings and you can register here:

Looking forward to seeing and hearing you bridge the world with words very soon.

Mel Perry, Conference Administrator