All Things Are Alive: Animating the Inanimate–Puppetry for Writers with Mobi Warren

Dates/Times: Saturdays, April 1, 8, 22, and 29, 10am – 12pm cst
Instructor: Mobi Warren
Cost: Nonmember:  $165  Member:  $145  Student/Vet/Mil: $95
*In person at Gemini Ink

*EARN CPE’S

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. 

Are you looking for a different way to tap into your creativity? Are you ready to experience the curiosity, wonder, and empathy that puppetry naturally inspires?

Under the guidance of puppeteer and poet Mobi Warren, workshop participants will build a simple hand puppet from paper mâché and cloth, and breathe life into the personality that emerges. The process may culminate in a poem, a short prose piece, or a monologue puppet script. Participants will be encouraged to sense the livingness in the materials used and to explore unexpected insights that emerge as the puppet acquires form. No puppetry experience is required to attend this workshop, and writers of all levels are welcome.  

Students will leave this workshop with the following tools:

• A guide on creating a simple papier mache glove (hand) puppet
• Techniques for animating a puppet through voice, character, and story
• How to use puppetry to uncover new poems or songs 
• Exploration of puppetry as a new point of entry into the creative writing process

*Bring a journal to write in. Puppetry supplies will be provided for all participants. 

*The cost of this workshop includes a $20 supply fee

Puppeteer Mobi Warren is the author of the young adult novel The Bee Maker and a poetry collection, Thread and Nectar. She is co-founder of the regional writers and artists collaborative, Stone in Stream, which advocates for environmental awareness and climate justice. Mobi serves on the Board of the National Capital Puppetry Guild.  An animist at heart, she is enchanted by the livingness of all materials and is currently in thrall to the wild (and sometimes unruly) species known as puppets, and how making and animating a puppet can help a writer engage more deeply with creative and empathetic energies.

Parking at Gemini Ink

Gemini Ink offers free parking along the back wall of our downtown offices. Please access this parking lot from Augusta St and first park in any of the 12 spots along the back wall. Only when these 12 spots are full do we ask that you park elsewhere in our lot. We now rent our offices from UTSA and are collaborating with them to create a secure and accessible parking lot for our community of writers and readers.