In this interdisciplinary, multi-genre, collaborative creative writing course writers will work alongside visual and performing arts students to create vivid, raw and honest works of art.

A significant portion of the course will explore how our external landscapes might impact our internal landscapes, and so shape our experience of being alive. More specifically we will linger over poetry, prose and drama that is in conversation with the Great Lakes, and how these bodies of water might impact us emotionally, physically, and perhaps spiritually. We will also look closely at the most current concerns regarding Michigan’s water, along with literature as a form of environmental, political and social protest.

While water and the Great Lakes will be a poignant theme throughout the semester, there will be ample opportunity to write freely from other, personal sources of inspiration.

This is a workshop course, with the goal of a public performance at the conclusion of the semester. Writers will begin by producing their own pieces, at which point visual and performing artists will be invited to begin collaborations. No prior experience in poetry or prose is required, but a curiosity and passion for language, collaboration, the arts and the Great Lakes is a meaningful prerequisite.