"For the Joy & The Sorrow: Writing the World," Starts Tomorrow!

Write with us for the next 12 weeks as we strive to see the world in all its brutal beauty, while aiming to get as close up to the world with our words as we can

To be with [Ross] Gay is to train your gaze to see the wonderful alongside the terrible; to attend to and meditate on what you love, even in the midst of difficult realities and as part of working for justice.”

~Krista Tippett

I was Krista Tippett’s daughter’s middle-school teacher, and I have a related small delight for you about the way time loops back on itself—how maybe there really is no past or future, it’s all now, in a strangely beautiful and mind-bending way.

I share this in anticipation of our Ross Gay-inspired writing intensive starting tomorrow, For the Joy & the Sorrow: Writing the World (remember to get hold of a copy of Gay’s The Book of Delights if you don’t already have one; the intensive is for paid members and you can upgrade here to participate).

Anyway, I taught Aly Tippett and the rest of our class to recite poems—that was traditional in our arts school—and in sixth-grade, I taught them Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day.” I remember our room that year—we were in the lower level of the school, and the kids’ desks were arranged in pods of four. They always stood behind their chairs when we worked on recitation. Probably because it kept everyone more attentive, but, also, when they were younger (I started with that group of students when they were in first grade), we’d often have little motions associated with the recitations, so standing just made sense. And I remember vividly how we’d all be standing in that classroom, reciting that poem in the morning, and how sincere they sounded when they asked, Who made the world? / Who made the swan, and the black bear? How we held up our palms when we said, Who made the grasshopper? /This grasshopper, I mean—

So it was a not-so-small delight when, several years ago, as Aly and her former fellow sixth-graders were finishing college, I got an email from Aly about a rare interview with Mary Oliver conducted by Aly’s mom. I had not been in steady contact with Aly for many years by then—she had moved out of state for college—so it was a joyful surprise to hear from her.

I have saved Aly’s email all these years, and always will. Here is what she said (among other things):

"... [D]o you remember when you taught us all ‘The Summer Day?’ There is a clip around 22 minutes in of me reciting the poem as it was taught to me by you, and though I remember being very nervous during the recording, I listen to it now and am overwhelmed with the physical memory of how deeply I felt this poem in the mornings in your classroom as we all spoke it out loud together, learning how to feel it piece by piece.

I am constantly thinking of you, always being reminded of things I ought to thank you for, but one of them is surely the gift you gave me of being able to recite the same thing as my classmates in honor of the beauty of the world—the truths that do not compromise. At an age so prone to loneliness and overwhelm where internal change is learned, there couldn’t have been a better time for me to learn such a gift— and now I am only a little bit older and much much more comfortable and taking wonderful poetry classes in college and THANKING you for bringing my attention to such a powerful outlet.

Again, I have many things to thank you for, but perhaps the best thanks I can give now comes in the form of Mary Oliver’s reaction to the reading. She sounds very pleased! When she listens, perhaps she hears a poem becoming something else again with a new voice. When I listen, I see your hands in the air as you guide us through the words, and I am comforted again by familiar words in a way that I had forgotten— or rather, absorbed and made subconscious and part of me.

Clearly I have not yet attained Mary Oliver’s beautiful ability to attain exact simplicity in writing! But I hope that this finds you in good health and great happiness, and I will continue writing you over the years until perhaps one day I will be sending you one-word emails that are precise and passionate and appropriately minimalist— and surely I will be thanking you in them still.

What a pleasure it is to think of Mary Oliver listening to a former version of Aly reciting that poem, reciting Oliver’s own words as taught to Aly by me, and then me listening to Mary Oliver listening to Aly speaking those words, the sound of all of her classmates’ voices silently surrounding her? The mingling of voices across time, proving how we all might actually be one.

I’ve told a longer version of this story before, with more detail about Mary Oliver herself, who always wrote by hand because a typewriter made the work look too pretty, too deceptively finished. Mary Oliver, who taught us that to pay attention is a form of prayer, and one of the three things we must in her instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

I hope you’ll join us for these next 12 weeks as we seek to do exactly these three things.

For the Joy & the Sorrow: A 12-Week Intensive for Writing the World Starts Tomorrow!

This multi-genre, all-level intensive, inspired by Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, is uniquely designed to draw our close attention—and our most alive writing—toward the extraordinary in the ordinary by seeing and illuminating the innate duality in all things.

We’ll learn how to see, perceive, and vividly capture the beautiful and the broken with the eyes of a photographer and the heart of a poet.

About the Gay’s The Book of Delights, NPR’s Christina Cala says:

The book is filled with such joy and effusiveness that I find myself revisiting it over and over again. Over the years, it has offered me a template for how to hold the good with the bad, to be more present, and to revel in the little things. This summer, I reread it yet again and found myself meditating on a desire Gay had voiced: wanting to be softer in a world so ready to sharpen us and to make us hard.

Writing in the Dark’s seasonal intensives are generative, playful, challenging, inspiring, and supportive, with a balanced emphasis on the freedom to create and the rigor to advance your craft.

Here’s recent feedback from the WITD community:

• With your passionate instruction and well-constructed exercises, my writing has improved immeasurably.

• If I had not found you Jeannine, I would be still blind in my writing, thinking I knew how to write. I have written several blogs and newsletters that failed, and I know why now. I didn't know how to write for an audience/reader. I am learning so much here about writing in this community and its ignited my passion, curiosity and eagerness to write. And I'm having fun doing it!

• The word "generous" has been applied to you, Jeannine, and your method/offering of teaching through Substack (and SCHOOL). It applies. Because of your allowance to “bring what we can" and that we are "enough" have, yes, given me full permission to be here. To embrace this love affair at an entirely new level. It is deeply gratifying. Thank you, ad infinitum.

• I found WITD by chance, but feel so at home here. Your kindness and generosity are a big part of that. I do believe I am learning a lot at an accelerated pace.

• Your exercises have brought back to me a love of writing that left me when I tried to get an MFA many years ago. Those workshops were complete agony for me. But now every day I pick an exercise and start to think, maybe I can write something? Just a little something, it doesn’t have to be good. I took up painting and drawing because there is always something to learn and expand to but it was okay with me if it was bad. I really had forgotten how to do that with writing, it’s always had this other place in my mind. This is a real life changer here

• So much of it comes down to the teacher. Jeannine, your teaching feels kindred to me, partly because of the craft elements, but also because of your themes, and how you model how to own our sides of our stories, and—this is crucial—handle the cost. I feel strong and skilled enough to start navigating this now.

What Will We Do During The Joy & The Sorrow?

We’ll immerse in The Book of Delights (you will need to obtain a copy!). Then we’ll emulate—based on inventive, structured exercises—Ross Gay’s practice of attention and his devotion to recording and shaping the world’s generous material into something more than itself.

“…[J]oy is the mostly invisible, the underground union between us, you and me, which is, among other things, the great fact of our life and the lives of everyone and thing we love going away. If we sink a spoon into that fact, into the duff between us, we will find it teeming. It will look like all the books ever written. It will look like all the nerves in a body. We might call it sorrow, but we might call it a union, one that, once we notice it, once we bring it into the light, might become flower and food. Might be joy.”

~ Ross Gay

WITD intensives are for discovering, exploring, and practicing—for working hard and having fun. But they can also be for advancing your work in progress or for starting new work for later publication, just as with other recent intensives like The Art of the Scene, Strange Containers and The Letter Reimagined. Many wonderful published pieces emerge from Writing in the Dark, some which you can peruse on our big, beautiful list of published work born in WITD:

Born in WITD: A Big Beautiful & Growing Directory of Work Published by WITD Writers

The Joy & The Sorrow is for all levels, and equally applicable to all genres, because attention is the bedrock of writing.

You’ll experience inventive new ways to break out of the same old/same old in order to find new ways onto the page. This intensive will be both accessible and challenging, as well as inspiring and supportive.

To note, THE JOY & THE SORROW is not a writing class per se (no class meetings, no Zoom, no “assignments,” etc.). It’s a WITD intensive on Substack, for which we are now what Billie Oh would call “medium famous.” An intensive is where all the material is delivered through four consecutive Wednesday posts, straight to your email inbox. I draw this distinction because I do ALSO teach writing classes! Which are different, which are tuition-based, and which are adjacent to and supported by but separate from the WITD newsletter on Substack.

For The Joy & the Sorrow and all WITD intensives, everything happens right here on the posts, and as long as you are a paid or founding member of WITD, you’re all set!

What’s Included in The Joy & The Sorrow

Paid members:

• Full access to all The Joy & The Sorrow posts, sent via email on Wednesdays, for close readings, writing exercises, direct instruction and inspiration for trying your hand at some unusual new short work.

• Access to our incredible comments—WITD comments sections are what makes this place so damn beautiful, because of the amazingness of the Writing in the Dark community. Each week, participants share questions, insights, and snippets of work in progress—and your guides, Jeannine and Billie, actively participate, as well.

Founding members also receive cool interactive stuff, like:

• Occasional Voice Memos and Video Notes (like this recent Voice Memo on why you’re never too late and always enough).

• Occasional Live Write-Ins and Live Salons on Zoom w/open mic readings (these are so fun)

• If you love face-to-face stuff, voice stuff, and more interactivity, the founding membership is for you for $15 more annually.

All participants come away with:

• A storehouse of valuable new ways to think about writing, and why we gain from stretching that way, plus specific tools to apply long after the the intensive is over.

• A collection of new work in progress that you can continue to develop on your own.

• An archive of readings and writing exercises you can repeat as desired.

• A deeper understanding of the ways fluency in scene writing or can enliven and strengthen all other aspects of your writing practice.

Join now to start poking around our giant archive and maybe even dip your toe into our thriving Thursday Threads, or explore the full archive of past WITD intensives and more than 500 posts rich with inspiring and instructive content.

What People Say About Writing in the Dark Intensives

• You are the most generous teacher.

• You are magic. Pure magic.

• I have learned much from you in the last year, through your weekly posts and seasonal intensives. The depth and quality of your content is unmatched on Substack (IMHO). That, plus the network of subscribers you have garnered is why I look forward to Wednesdays! (And Mondays for Lit Salon and Thursdays for the new Threads!) I have been involved in workshops that cost more but provide less. Thanks for all you are producing and the community you have created in an effort to bring the out our best writing selves.

• As always, there's more to these exercises than I first anticipate.

• I’m thoroughly enjoying this challenge and truly appreciate all the ways you’re helping each of us become more thoughtful and evocative writers.

• It's actually been super helpful to work through the exercises in quick succession, like a little writing course... But so much more inspiring and thoughtful and generous and fun than any I've taken before. THANK YOU Jeannine, you are brilliant.

• These assignments are like magic.

• Your post gave me a giant AHA moment. You’ve unlocked my understanding of tension and storytelling in memoir.

• This post was wonderful. Love the first quote especially. I had a couple of deeper realizations with this exercise.

• Reading all the comments on my writing today, so full of enthusiasm and encouragement, really made my day! One of the things I will treasure most about this challenge is learning to trust myself and others with my writing.

  Join us for The Joy & The Sorrow!

  Write With Us in January!

  Subscribed

What to Expect From Every WITD Intensive

• Inventive writing exercises that invite you to try some really unexpected new approaches on the page.

• Encouragement to participate each week—which is a very lively experience—or work at your own pace, or start the challenge later or repeat it, or whatever works best for you, because all of the posts will be tagged and permanently archived in order.

• An immersion in the concept of “zero-waste” writing, where everything interesting can become something more than itself now or later.

• Encouragement to record your experiences as part of the process—and you can expect to find me and Billie Oh in the comments, too, participating in the conversation.

• Links to resources for further reading.

• Exercises that are clear, doable, and scaffolded over the 6 weeks in a way that allows you, if you like, to “arranges the bits” toward an interesting suggestion of wholeness later.

• Highly usable craft tools you can apply forever.

• Specific, potent literary approaches to deepen and illuminate your relationship with language.

• New discoveries about yourself and your life.

• Exercises that are specific and directive and clear, but also a bit feral and unpredictable. You can expect (as always in WITD) exercises that honor the truth of living in bodies that breathe and move and laugh and cry, while also living in a world that breathes and moves and laughs and cries, while also having unruly minds that are constantly escaping to the past and the future even when what we most need is to attend to this exact moment in order to live lives that are, as Mary Oliver said, “particular and real.”

• To be imperfect and write imperfectly, and for that to be perfectly okay.

• To come out of this intensive with new ideas about what writing can be, and how it can feel.

• To come out of this intensive with new ideas of who you are, who you are becoming, and what is possible for you as a writer.

I know from the experience of The Art of the Scene, The Letter Reimagined, Strange Containers, the Lyric Essay Challenge and Story Challenge and The Visceral Self that these things evolve and change along the way, but these are the main points as far as we can see, and I’m happy to answer questions if you have them! Just throw your thoughts into the comments.

I can’t wait to write with you!

Love,
Jeannine