We all seem to be moved by music, though our preference in genre varies. We use our favorite songs to get pumped up for competition; stay motivated through a workout; drown our sorrows after a heartbreak; accompany our wailing when we’ve had enough. There are songs that conjure slideshows of memories, making us remember people, places and moments that remain vivid years later.
How do we chronicle the way music moves and shapes us? How can we use music to develop our characters and our stories; to add depth and nuance? That’s what we’ll be covering in this generative class.
Vanessa Mártir is a big-hearted, 1980s Brooklyn-raised bocona learning the heartbeat of silence in the countryside of upstate NY; an oil-and-water combination of imposter syndrome, ambition, procrastination, certainty, insecurity and drive. Vanessa writes essays, memoir and novels, is a wanna be poet & playwright, and the creator of the Writing Our Lives Workshop; the Writing the Mother Wound Movement, and most recently the Write Your Abortion Story class. Vanessa has been widely published including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Longreads, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Aster(ix) Journal, and the New York Times' Bestselling anthology Not That Bad, edited by Roxane Gay, among others. She has partnered with Tin House and The Rumpus to publish WOL alumni, and with Longreads and NYU's Latinx Project to publish Mother Wound essays. She has also served as guest editor of Aster(ix) and The James Franco Review. When she's not writing or teaching, you can find Vanessa in her garden or hiking in an old growth forest. Find out more about her relentless belief in our stories at vanessamartir.com.
Vanessa is new to The Porch. Welcome!
