Creative Writing Wordshops Newsletter February 2024

A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves… Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart larger. (Ben Okri)

Part of my joyous encounter with people is creating, telling and sharing a story every Saturday morning on a what’s app broadcast group. Around 3 minutes. It arrives with a quotation that plays off and with the story. generating yet another conversation. During COVID it came out daily and now once a week.

I delight in the responses. Though it goes forth to some 500 people (a groupsend yet it arrives one-on-one.) Every week some 20 to 25 folk share how the story touches on and impacts on their lives. Some send images evoked. I cherish these creative responses.

So this month’s letter features this communication. A story stone dropped in the pond and the ripples circle out to lap on distant shores. A touch of Rilke here:

I am circling around God,
around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know
if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Feb-2024-letter.pdf