TMI Project True Storytelling Writing Workshop
Join us in this true storytelling writing workshop from TMI Project, for discovering tools for giving expression to our personal experiences and untold stories of the animals who have touched our lives, and our relationship with a world that often does not see them. Workshop leaders Seth Davis and Micah Blumenthal will give workshop participants tools and guidelines for exploring the power of their own true stories for inspiring connection and compassion.
This is a free workshop, co-hosted by Lisa Levinson of In Defense of Animals Sustainable Activism Campaign.
Advance sign up is required by November 20
For questions, email info@compassionarts.org
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
Unlike other kinds of social change, animals cannot tell the world their stories – they rely on the voices of those who care about them to do so. Progress and healing for animals in an inhumane world can only come about when humans have a way to understand the depth of animals’ emotional lives and how we are all connected. Those who know animals, and who care about them and are aware of their suffering can be a vessel for animals’ stories, to help others see from a more compassionate view.
For this reason, Compassion Arts is committed to developing our ongoing storytelling project ANIMAL STORY about experiences with animals who have touched our lives. The project was started last year when we partnered with In Defense of Animals for an all-day TMI Project True Storytelling workshop. This year we are offering a simpler more accessible program with a 2 hour TMI Project online workshop for instruction on true storytelling with experiential exercises, to provide people with tools and a framework to write their true stories on their own, for people who care deeply about animals.
Not everyone is able to grow up with an animal companion family member to feel their unconditional love, not everyone is intuitively at peace with wildlife, and not everyone is able to visit a sanctuary; but, when people who love animals and have had connected experiences with them, have a way to share their stories, then others can be given a chance to see animals through their eyes.
ABOUT TMI PROJECT
TMI Project is a nonprofit transmedia organization teaching true storytelling workshops and creating inspiring live performances and bold digital content for the purpose of sharing radically candid, true personal narratives to ignite connection, challenge the status quo, and inspire both storytellers and listeners to take action for positive social change. Since 2010, TMI Project has led approximately 90 true storytelling workshops and staged live storytelling performances by more than 1,750 storytellers, which have been presented to audiences of nearly 50,000 people in schools, colleges, prisons, mental health clinics, theaters, community centers, and the United Nations.
WORKSHOP LEADERS
SETH DAVIS BRANITZ is a TMI Project workshop leader as well as a storyteller, singer- songwriter, and acclaimed plant-based chef. He’s produced four albums and his essays have been published by The Weeklings and Longreads. He writes about his experiences with mental illness, addiction, fatherhood, and loss. He’s won multiple Moth Story Slams and has done readings from Brooklyn to Boston
MICAH BLUMENTHAL is a TMI Project workshop leader and serves as the manager at GWI’s (Good Works Institute) Greenhouse Kingston. He is a yoga teacher at Mudita, creator of DAY 1 (a New Year’s Day community event), and serves on the board of Wild Earth (a non-profit Wilderness School), Radio Kingston, The Center for Creative Education, and O+ (a nonprofit health and wellness festival for artists and creators). He also serves as City of Kingston’s Art Commissioner at the Kingston Farmers Market.