This one-day creative writing class led by Cassandra Lewis is for adult writers of all levels. For inspiration, we will take a literary tour through sample passages and encounter ghosts in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and Isabelle Allende’s House of Spirits. We will witness how superstition shapes the story of “The Oblong Box” by Edgar Allen Poe and visit with metaphorical ghosts in Hilary Mantel’s Giving Up the Ghost and Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House. We may even dare to gaze upon haunted landscapes painted by Edvard Munch and Caspar David Friedrich for visual writing prompts. By exploring the narrative functions of ghosts, we will respond to a series of writing prompts and create our own ghost stories. Whether your story is supernatural, a psychological haunting, an experience of what it’s like to disappear from your own life, or an anecdote about being ghosted, the possibilities are endless!

Students should bring a notebook and a pen or a pencil, or a laptop.

Driven by the Transcendentalist attention to nature, this two-day intensive workshop invites you to use plants, ink and paper in new, creative ways. Students will learn to view the natural world as both studio and subject, as inspiration for artwork and for journaling.

Day 1

Using local flora—leaves, ferns, and flowers— and paying close attention to their unique textures and forms, we will experiment with the expressive art of monotype printmaking on the museum’s large Charles Brand etching press.

Day 2 The finished prints will become the raw material for three different  journal designs that students can easily replicate at home. 

No prior printmaking or bookbinding experience is required. All materials are provided, but students are encouraged to bring gathered flora from their own neighborhood walks.

Instructor: Caroline Coolidge Brown, www.CarolineCBrown.com

Adult writers in this class, led by Cassandra Lewis, will meet in the gallery and find inspiration by visiting the exhibition, Transcendent: Landscapes of the Hudson River School. After the gallery visit, writers will have the opportunity to put some of their creative writing ideas into practice in the Thronson Boardroom. The class will experience passages from Transcendentalist writers such as Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. They will also explore samples of more contemporary nature writing and ecowriting, including works by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Barry Lopez, Camille T. Dungy, and others. Ecowriting is a form of creative and critical writing that channels storytelling toward environmental and ecological themes with the goal of fostering connection, empathy and action toward nature and conservation. Writers in this class will come away with an understanding of how Transcendentalist writing continues to influence today’s ecowriting and a draft of a personal essay that connects their experience with the wonders of the natural world.

Writers should bring a notepad and a pen or a pencil, or a laptop.