Vertigo writing workshop!

[mrissa]

 Exciting news! I've been working all year on a vertigo arts project, collaborating with people in academia, physical therapy, puppetry, and dance. Now I'm running a creative writing workshop for people directly or indirectly affected by vertigo to process some of their experiences through the written word.

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 23 at 1100 a.m. Central Standard Time (5 p.m. GMT). This workshop is FREE TO ATTEND with funding provided by the Impact and Innovation Fund of the University of St Andrews, Scotland--but we do ask that you register in advance! For more questions or to register, please email ar220@st-andrews.ac.uk

We will draw on some of the complexities, difficult symptoms, and feelings that characterise the condition such as loss of balance, mobility, disorientation, dizziness, anxiety, impact on social relationships, etc. You will be given some prompts to work with, but you will be encouraged to write at your own pace, using forms or technique that are most comfortable to you.

I know that this doesn't apply to many/most of you, but please spread the word to anyone you know who DOES live with vertigo or someone who has vertigo. This is not the last thing I will get to tell you about from the vertigo arts project--this is just the beginning of the cool stuff we've been doing.

Comments

[landingtree]

I have passed this on to a friend, who is in an incompatible time zone / sleep cycle for this particular workshop but I will keep on passing on the cool stuff to them!

[mrissa]

There will also be self-guided materials available! Also, if your friend is actively interested, have them email the address and tell the coordinator that and what time zone they're in. Expressed interest may well affect the timing of another workshop.

[davidgoldfarb]

I feel a little bit silly: this confused me at first and I thought it was some tie-in to the DC Comics imprint.

[mrissa]

David, I don't think this post is genuinely confusing, and I don't think it should be confusing to someone who has been around me in person when my vertigo is quite bad, and has known me for most of the 20 years I've had vertigo. We all have fleeting thoughts like this but sometimes we can just let them flee unpursued.

[davidgoldfarb]

I didn't mean to say it was genuinely confusing: I realized what was really going on after a few moments. I apologize for the unclarity. I posted because I thought you might find it funny.

[mrissa]

Well, I'm the humorless scold today, because in general I think you should just bet on "I free-associated your medical condition with a comics imprint [or in fact other random thing of the same name]" not being a big laugh line for most disabled people going forward.

[tigerflower]

This is fabulous and I am heartened and impressed to know that St. Andrews has made something like this possible. I am now wondering what zero-G stories look like from the perspective of someone with vertigo. Talk about body horror. Or maybe not?

[mrissa]

I've revisited this a lot, because a lot of my dreams when the vertigo is bad are malfunctioning space station dreams. But generally it's not body horror for me, it's a sense that...I already know how to deal with a lack of up and down better than most people who don't have two decades of experience with vertigo on the regular, I'd be better suited rather than horrified.

[davidgillon]

Repeated via my FB, not sure I've anyone in my contacts there who is affected, but I've a reasonable selection of well-connected disability types, so hopefully they can spread it further.

[mrissa]

Thank you!