The Writer’s Room: Our Unstilled Lives

In this 2-hour workshop, the group will approach reading and writing “object study” poems through an alternative look at the "still life" using Jenny Odell's notion of "unfreezing an object in time." The class will look closely at objects, photographs, and poems and generate writing through these encounters of “keeping watch.”
Instructors:
Celia Easton Koehler holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Missoula. Her poems can be found in the Schuykill Valley Journal, La Piccioletta Barca, and Write Place among others. In Missoula, she is co-host of a poetry radio show, Please Pay Attention Please and co-founder of a community poetry library and reading room, Please, Poetry Library. She moved to Montana from New York where she worked advising the boards of limited equity housing-cooperatives with the non-profit UHAB for several years. She is passionate about the limited-equity co-ops and CLTs as models for long-term affordable and community-owned housing and property. In Missoula, she is an active board member at FrontStep CLT. In addition to affordable neighborhoods and housing, some things that are important to her are: jogging around at a (very) leisurely pace, eavesdropping, collective practices and self-managed, place-based projects.
Alicia Watkinson is an interdisciplinary artist living in both the negative and positive spaces while learning how to name them. She received her MFA from the University of South Florida in 2023 and through the use of writing and photography, she pursues moments and monuments to time past, a look at what has been lost and what still remains. Alicia has worked with youth of all ages in Missoula, finding gratitude in their ability to write from the truth.