Our Wastelands are destroyed, dismembered, and disemboweled places. Here, all is not right. Carl Jung’s theories of the collective unconscious and archetypes combine with storytelling, poems and mythology, leading the way into a mystical world of sacred and animate nature. Connecting to the earth through meditations, actively listen to the wounded and forgotten places of the Wastelands. Learn to speak the land’s language, then enter into a conversation with it. What is the land trying to communicate? What does it need? Explore through generative freewriting what has historically, culturally and philosophically paved the way for the Wastelands, as well as what your relationship and responsibility is to them. How can you lend your voice to the Wastelands? What is your calling or purpose here? This inspirational workshop lends the tools to process and intentionally interact with the grave issues of climate change and environmental destruction with a sense of empowerment rather than despair. Any focused writer—from fiction to poetry to creative nonfiction and beyond—is welcome, as well as participants simply seeking ways to creatively interact with the grave issues of our times. Logistics: Please meet in the lobby of the Center so we can carpool to our workshop location. This is an outdoor workshop with a small amount of easy walking, and sitting on the ground. Wear comfortable walking shoes, and bring a small backpack with water, a warm layer, a rain jacket, a sun hat or visor, sunscreen, lip balm, sunglasses and a portable camp chair if you have one. Also bring a journal and writing utensil (instead of a laptop, tablet, or cell phone). Drawing tools such as colored pencils are welcome.
Creative non-fiction and place-based author Molly Murfee has studied, written, and taught nature writing, ecofeminism, mythology, creative writing, and indigenous culture and history for over three decades. Molly is the 2023 Local Writer-in-Residence for Mountain Words. She is the author of the Earth Muffin Memos blog featured in the Crested Butte News and online, focused on fostering environmental and social change. Her over 500 published articles have appeared in venues such as Mountain Journal, the Mountain Gazette, and Powder Magazine, as well as community outlets such as the Crested Butte Magazine. She holds Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in literature, creative writing, and environmental writing; and has served as faculty teaching the same with Colorado College, Colorado State University, and the Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University. Molly currently teaches expedition-based nature writing and environmental ethics courses with the Clark Family School of Environment & Sustainability at Western Colorado University. Additionally a field educator and wilderness guide, her writing workshops connect people to place through immersions in nature. As a creative activist, she co-directs the Autumn Equinox celebration, Vinotok, generating earth-honoring and community-building practices through storytelling, mythmaking, public art, and street theatre. Her recognitions include: finalist for the 2022 Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction; contributor to the 2022 Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference; Career Advancement Award from the Colorado Creative Industries; and an Artistic Enrichment Grant from the Crested Butte Arts Festival, among other honors. Molly’s book in progress, The Adventure of Home, is a creative nonfiction book re-membering our indigeneity to this Earth through braided lyrical narratives unravelling patriarchy, capitalism, Christianity and colonialism, and reweaving mythologies of a sacred wild.
