White Fire: The Spaces Between Words

White Fire: The Spaces Between Words
Thursdays 18:30-20:30
May-June, 2017

Creating dialogue…

… with the words you read

The Torah is said to have been written as black fire on white fire. We will be dealing with the realm of the white fire, the spaces between the words.

Reading, according to Roland Barthes, is a performative act. Since no text can fully delineate every aspect of the story, readers become part of the creative process, constantly filling in the gaps with their own contexts — things seen, felt, experienced, and read. Bibliotherapy deals with the ways in which we fill in these gaps.

This is an experiential workshop. Writing in this workshop will center on the ways we engage with texts, the ways we "write" them. The writing exercises will be suitable even for those with less writing experience but with a love for words. Since this is a process-oriented, rather than a product-oriented way of working, with each session emerging from what transpired in the former session, the workshop will take place over eight weeks.

Sheffi Raiskin is a Jerusalem-based bibliotherapist with over 20 years of experience in a wide variety of settings, She holds an MA in English Literature & Creative Writing from Bar-Ilan University, where she taught composition. She has published in English & in Hebrew, and recent awards include the 2015 Andrea Moriah Poetry Prize and finalist in the Ya'acov Herzog Center's 2015 Jewish Women's Writing Contest. Trained in Somatic Experiencing, she combines writing with attention to the body and incorporates mindfulness practices in the process. Rather than putting the emphasis on craft and editing, Sheffi's writing workshops center around the ways in which the participants create their own specific written dialogue with texts and with the world. Literary theory is utilized insofar as it serves to widen our understanding of the viewpoints and styles that the participants choose, and in order to suggest possible avenues of exploration.

is a Jerusalem-based bibliotherapist who has been practicing for the past twenty years in a wide variety of settings. She writes both in English and Hebrew, and is the recipient of the She holds an MA in English Literature and Creative Writing from Bar-Ilan University, where many moons ago she taught composition. Trained in Somatic Experiencing, she combines writing with attention to the body and incorporates mindfulness practices in the process. Rather than putting the emphasis on craft and editing, Sheffi's writing workshops center around the ways in which the participants create their own specific written dialogue with texts and with the world. Sheffi draws on her thirty years of literary theory studies in order to probe the styles and points of view chosen by the various participants choose, and to suggest possible avenues of further exploration exploration.

Minimum/Maximum No. Participants: 8/10
Location: PICO Jerusalem
Cost: 800 NIS for eight workshops