Inspired Belonging Poetry Workshop: Claim Your Story
Come on a poetic journey with Inspired Belonging to reconnect with your authentic self & the stories you've always wanted to tell.
Hey All,
On February 28th at 10amPST/1pmEST Stephanie Renée Payne & I will host our first Inspired Belonging poetry workshop called Claim Your Story. Tickets are available for $15 on our Eventbrite page.
This is a workshop that we’ve been so excited to release to the public and we hope to see you all there to share in the power of poetry and each others’ stories.
Here’s what to expect in the workshop:
In times like these, it is imperative to (re)claim the stories that celebrate and communicate who we authentically are to the world. Poetry allows us to create a personal language to tell our stories, archives our histories, and develop sacred spaces where all of us can commune together peacefully.
As practicing poets, writers, and writing instructors at University of Southern California, workshop leaders Stephanie Renée Payne & Daniel Dissinger have developed Inspired Belonging’s approach creative writing workshops as fully embodied experiences. The writing is integrated with guided breathing and gentle somatic practices that help participants ground themselves, regulate the nervous system, and lovingly remain present with what arises. The workshop also includes facilitated communal reflection, guided by a heart-centered, love-ethic framework rather than critique or over-intellectualization.
Stephanie & Daniel’s instruction is inspired by the teachings of bell hooks, specifically her book All About Love and her articulation of love as a communal and ethical practice. The Inspired Belonging approach to writing and workshops is to center care as a way of listening deeply to oneself to articulate experiences with honesty, clarity, and compassion. Participants are invited to explore where their stories live in the body and how poetic language can help them name truths that may have felt difficult to hold or express. Through this process, writing becomes a means of reconnection, which allows participants to affirm their lived truths, and to meet themselves with tenderness. Poetry, in this spirit, becomes a shared human practice that re-humanizes storytelling and invites connection.
In the end, the goal is for participants to leave the workshop with a deeper sense of their authentic truth and a personal poetics to write those stories that need telling. Our goal is to hold space for generative & affirming writing in honor of bell hooks’ reminder that loving rightly includes caring for our own well-being and setting healthy boundaries around storytelling.
Thank you, and we hope to see you there.
With Gratitude,
Daniel Dissinger & Stephanie Renée Payne
P.S. You can listen & watch Inspired Belonging episodes of Writing Remix here on Substack