Kali Meister Teaches Improvisation Skills at Writers’ Guild Meeting
Writer and actress Kali Meister, current writer in residence at the
University of Tennessee Library, will lead a mini workshop on the skills
of improvisation at the May 7 meeting of the Knoxville Writers Guild.
The meeting will be at 7 p.m. at the Laurel Theater at the corner of
Laurel Avenue and 16th Streets in Forth Sanders and is open to the public.
A $1 donation is requested at the door. The building is handicapped
accessible.
Meister, a playwright and well-known performer of poetry and comedy,
describes improvisation as “an art-making strategy” that frees the
imagination and helps a person access unpredictable material. She said
audience members will learn techniques for expanding their awareness,
stimulating their imaginations, and opening themselves up to feelings so
they can express themselves more effectively as writers.
She said she will talk about how preparation and spontaneity work
together, and will lead participants in trying out improvisation for
themselves. “Through improvising, collaborating, reading, and writing the
audience will assess the usefulness of these various strategies in their
own work,” she said.
Meister has worked as a playwright, director, actor, costume coordinator,
and make-up designer. On April 8, the University of Tennessee Women’s
Coordinating Council and UT Libraries co-sponsored a performance of her
play “Exposed.” The cross-genre play is a nonfiction journey through
Meister’s life and featured monologues, songs, dance, and poetry by George
Pate, Michael Hudson, Crystal Humphrey Bruaeneur and Meister herself.
Meister holds the 2005 Margaret Artley Woodruff Award for fiction and the
2006 Margaret Atley Award for playwriting. She also received the 2005 and
2006 Eleanor Burke Award for non-fiction from the University of
Tennessee’s English department. Her poetry has been featured in
publications such as Circle Magazine, Ashville Poetry Review, Prism,
“Low-Explosions Anthology,” Pegasus Review, Caduceu Literary Review,
Phoenix, and “Outscapes,” the current Knoxville Writers’ Guild anthology.
Her nonfiction essays, “Seven Vignettes About Rats,” received an
honorable mention for Hunger Mountain's 2008 Nonfiction Writing Prize.
She is the current Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence with Hodges Library
at the University of Tennessee. Meister is a graduate of the University of
Tennessee and is currently a MFA candidate studying creative writing, with
a concentration in playwriting, at Goddard College.
The Knoxville Writers’ Guild offers monthly meetings, writers’ groups and
periodic workshops for local writers. It receives the support of WUOT 91.9
FM.
For more information, contact:
Kelly Norrell
Publicity Chair
The Knoxville Writers’ Guild
806-0132
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