How do we relate to the containers and structures we live with(in)? How do they change us, and how do we change them? What contradictions come to light when we examine the ways we seek to make home? This four-week course offers space and provocation to write into these questions through a focus on hermit crab essays and their limits & possibilities as queer forms.
Week 1 – vulnerability
During the first week, we will get familiar with hermit crab essays as a means of protection when writing about vulnerable topics.
Week 2 – performance and cultural critique
Kazim Ali suggests we ‘take genre itself as a form of drag’. This week, we will try our hand at hermit crabs as performances that play with and subvert textual norms.
Week 3 – homing devices
What does it mean to make a home? How is home linked to freedom (and freedom for whom)? Considering critiques of hermit crab essays, we will explore different ways of making and understanding home in our work.
Week 4 – turning inward and outward
Revising hermit crab essays for other readers involves meditating on the joins between narrative and form. This week, we will deepen our understanding of our work and ourselves in order to prepare our essays for the outside world.
Date: 7-28th May 2025
Location: Online, over Zoom
Cost: £10-£200 (sliding scale)
Pricing: This course is intended as a lower cost option. The standard sliding scale is £10/£60/£120/£200. If you can afford to pay above the £10 option, please do so to help with our costs. If none of these payment options are possible for you, email info@beyondformcreativewriting.org
More info at www.beyondformcreativewriting.org/current-workshops
Book your place here
Queries? Contact info@beyondformcreativewriting.org