Writing the Body with Lee Kofman

From the event listing:

One of the common ills affecting many fiction and creative nonfiction writers is a tendency to forget that people they describe have bodies, and to make use of this wonderful fact. In real life, Lee explains, all of us are embodied and everything we do, even our thinking, comes from, through and/or despite our bodies. In Writing the Body participants will learn to write in a way that not only pays attention to this central fact of human existence, but also uses the body as a source of inspiration. This workshop will look at the body as a multidimensional entity – physical, cultural, and a singular marker of an individual; the source of our pleasures and difficulties. Lee will discuss what importance body may assume in the participants’ projects. Writers will learn how to describe appearance, body language and other bodily gestures vividly and also in a way that deepens characterisation. Participants will learn how to describe sensory experiences, including writing erotic scenes. They will also learn how to describe pain in ways particular to the characters they’re writing about. Explore the common pitfalls in writing about the body and how to avoid them. The workshop incorporates theory, discussion, examples from fiction and non-creative fiction and writing exercises.