Winter Writing Immersion: Imagination, Memory, and Messaging

Date: Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Time: 4:00-8:00 p.m.
Location: Montana Natural History Center
Cost: $150 MNHC members, $165 non-members

This workshop is open to anyone who is curious about writing. No prior experience is necessary. Please just bring your open mind – a willingness to experiment and think in new ways.

This refreshing four-hour evening workshop is an invitation to explore both our interior and exterior ecosystems, paying attention to the quiet or invisible things all around us. We will imagine the different ways in which humans and animals receive and send messages, and how those messages traverse time and geography. We’ll consider how messages are stored in individual and collective memories, in landscapes, and in water.

We will discuss the benefit of taking notes – field notes and observations, as well as notes from our interiors – considering two distinct spheres of noticing. We will explore strategies for “unsticking” our creative selves, even on the darkest of winter days. Calling on poetry, science, images, and our own imaginations, we will spiral between internal and external systems, exploring new forms and sensations in our physical bodies, our thinking minds, and our creative work.

You can expect to come away with material to spark future writing projects. You will receive a reading and resource list one week before the workshop, meant to orient you and offer context for our time together. You will leave the workshop connected to an emerging community of local writers and creators.

Instructor Chandra Brown is an educator, river guide, and writer originally from Alaska. She has worked within the realm of river conservation since her 2010 Fulbright grant to Ecuador, and she founded Freeflow Institute in 2017. Her stories can be found in places like Adventure Journal, The Dirtbag Diaries, Kayak Session, NRS, and Patagonia. Chandra earned her M.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana and has called Missoula home since 2014.

Light refreshments provided. Attendees are welcome to bring additional food, snacks, and/or drinks.

What’s the refund policy?

The course fee is refundable if a cancellation is made up to 7 days before the event. No refunds will be issued for cancellations made after this deadline. In light of changes to programming due to novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the Montana Natural History Center will make exceptions to its normal refund policy. These exceptions are as follows:

Any programs cancelled by the Montana Natural History Center are eligible for a full refund.

In the event a program fee can be rolled over to a following cycle or year, that offer will be made available to the paying program participant, and a spot will be reserved for the participant.

If a program is cancelled by a participant due to reasonable health and safety concerns from exposure risk to novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the Montana Natural History Center will issue a full refund.

If any participant experiences major illness, injury, or loss of a family member prior to the start of a registered program the participant is eligible for a full refund.

Do I have to bring my printed ticket to the event?

Nope! We will have a list of all the attendees.