From Page to Page: Bibliomancy for Drafting and Crafting the Writing to Come

In this workshop we’ll dip our toes into bibliomancy, a particular branch of divinatory poetics. Outside the field of writing, bibliomancy is a divination technique that employs the random opening to a page in a book to locate a passage that can then be interpreted as a means for answering questions about oneself and the world in which we live. Rather than employing bibliomancy for such fortune-telling purposes, we writers will experiment with how to use it to call upon the muse for general inspiration or as a means for seeking guidance making difficult decisions regarding our writing and/or writing practices. Participating writers will be invited to bring their own books to the workshop, but we can also use the library at Lighthouse, and/or the books the instructor will bring. This workshop is for both prose writers and poets alike, however it is specifically tailored for writers with a fairly realized work-in-progress such as a long poem, a short story, an essay, or a book-length project like a memoir, a novel, or collection of poetry, stories, or essays. This class is designed for those both well-versed in the “school” of divinatory poetics or brand new to the idea.