To Those Pidgeonholed In Their Shelters, Their Minds, Their Realities:
Pidgeonholes is launching a series of free lessons to share with you during these tumultuous times. We hope these lessons provide you with inspiration and distraction, as needed—whether you’re stuck at home self-isolating, or continuing to work, as required to do. Rest assured, we’re feeling anxious and uncertain too, and we hope these lessons ease those feelings, even if for a few minutes.
A distraction with purpose.
These lessons will run as long as we can provide them (and, hopefully, for as long as you need them). We have a number of lessons lined up, but if you’re interested in providing content, please contact us at pidgeonholesmag@gmail.com—we’d be more than happy to bring you into the mix.
We will not be providing feedback on pieces created from these lessons. Comment in the notes to the lesson that you’re looking for another set of eyes on your work, and we’re sure you’ll receive a response. What better way to spend this time apart than to read each other’s words.
Panic write. Stab the paper with your pen. Let your stream of conscious out. Let it run. Let it spool across the floor and thud down the steps. Lock yourself in the bathroom with your pad of paper and scream. Sit in the empty tub and forget it all. Sit on the steps of your house, your shelter, your now-closed-up-library, your abandoned space of refuge, and etch down your thoughts, as quickly as your pen will write. Don’t bottle it up. Don’t let it destroy you.
We want to hear this.
We need to hear this.
Let. It. Out.
We are here for you, we see you, and we love you.
With all of our hearts,
Pidgeonholes
(To view lessons, click on the “Curriculum tab” next to “Overview” above.)
All lessons are being provided free of charge. Instructors are volunteering their time, material, and knowledge without payment. If you’re in a position to contribute for access to these lessons and discussions, we would encourage you to donate directly to causes that support food programs for children and the underprivileged in your neighbourhood, as well as those that support healthcare workers, teachers, small business owners, and independent bookstores.
Photo by: Frederico Respini
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Lessons
Lessons focusing on fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and the intercepts between, to provide inspiration and/or distraction.
- The Thickness & The Threshold: A Lesson With Alina Stefanescu
- What Might Have Been: A Lesson With Steve Edwards
- What Echoes Will Always Come Back: A Lesson With Hillary Leftwich
- Creating Emotional Urgency Using Anaphora & Parallelism: A Lesson With Kathy Fish
- The House and You: Intimate Spaces, Objects and Memory: A Lesson With Hannah VanderHart
- Populating Fiction in the Age of Social Isolation: A Lesson with Aram Mrjoian
- All That Lingers: A Lesson with Satya Dash
- A Lesson with Kim Magowan
- Epistolary Writing: a Shortcut to Earnestness & a Step toward Experiment: A Lesson With Tyler Barton
- Diving Through to the Other Side: A Lesson With Meg Tuite
- Evoking Deep Feeling in Narrative: A Lesson With Jennifer Wortman
- What Stays on the Page: Using Photos as Inspiration: A Lesson With Madeline Anthes
- Freewriting With Sentence Starts: A Lesson With Francine Witte
- How Did We Get Here?: A Lesson With Joshua Jones
- Switching Up Your POV For Deeper Access: A Lesson With Melissa Ragsly
- The Sky is a Story: A Lesson With Robert James Russell
- Let’s Talk About How Stories Get Started: A Lesson With K.C. Mead-Brewer
- Hoarding and the Fear of Scarcity: A Lesson With Michelle Ross
- WYSIWYG (A Piece of Writing in Which What You See is What You Get): A Lesson With Kaj Tanaka
- A Lesson With Lauren Slaughter
- On Obsession and Time and Imperative: A Lesson With Sara Lippmann
- Our Bodies, Our Feelings, Our Paratext: A Lesson With Erik Fuhrer
- The A-ha Moments We Never Go A-ha To: A Lesson With Jennifer Fliss
- A Muse In Nature: A Lesson With Ashley M. Jones