Written Women: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Written Women is a monthly writers salon at Cordelia, inviting you to respond to poems, stories and myths written by and about women.
About this Event

Each month, we'll read and discuss a different text to inspire our own free-write session, drawing from women's stories of power, madness, sensuality, tragedy, queerness, and insubordination. Time will be set aside at the end of each meetup for folks to share excerpts of what they've written.
This August, we’ll read the work of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a nun and scholar in 17th-century colonial Mexico who had the nerve to criticize a priest's sermon and, when reprimanded, wrote “Respuesta a Sor Filotea” (“Response to Sister Filotea”), a letter considered by many to be one of the first feminist manifestos.
We'll take in the breadth of her voice and subject matter, sampling her writing across dramatic romance poems, empassioned critiques, witty satires, and mystic accounts of dreams and psychic journeys. We'll explore the symbiotic relationship between study and writing, weilding these practices as two limbs of the same devotion, and using them to write our own original pieces inspired by what we've learned and what we're here to say.
Written Women is led by poet, movement artist and facilitator Katya Borkov. You can learn more about her work at www.everythingspills.studio, or on instagram @everything.spills
This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Photograph courtesy of Rebecca Foltin

Agenda
Introduction to this month's material
Collective readings
Guided discussion
Generative writing prompts
Concluding group share