“I want to help people to make the impossible more possible, the possible more pleasant,
and the pleasant more elegant.”
—Moshe Feldenkrais.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ALLE ON “LIT MAG LOVE”
The only way to publish is to submit your work.
Alle’s Get Published classes provide support for learning about publishing as you are publishing.
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I have come to understand that my writing philosophy is based in the movement work of Moshe Feldenkrais. Feldenkrais developed Awareness Through Movement®, a series of comfortable physical motions that look a lot like rolling around on the floor. By rolling, we develop an awareness of how we roll in order to roll more comfortably and with greater efficiently.
The parallels to writing and to publishing abound.
In rolling, we ask:
- Is it important to roll this particular way? or
- Do we roll this way simply because we always have?
- Because those who taught us rolled this way?
Will rolling in a different way produce a more graceful roll with less effort?
- Do I even need to roll?
- Can I crawl or skip?
Many physical therapies work with the goal of nailing down the perfect roll (that works best for somebody else?) and rolling precisely in that way every single time we roll. The Fedenkrais method would foster awareness of where our rolling takes us at that moment, and rolling with as much elegance and pleasure as the moment allows.
Sub: writing. Developing awareness through writing and through publishing allows writers to:
- more easily identify goals in context of who we are and which direction we wish to go, rather than who we think we should be in context of someone else’s definition of success (the impossible more possible);
- more gracefully accept feedback and more easily determine if the information is useful (the possible pleasant); and
- set higher standards for our writing and publishing, and achieve them with greater ease (the pleasant more elegant).
I work with individuals as well as groups, for a single or multiple sessions.
My classes are listed here. No rolling required.
Kudos
“Alle is a natural teacher with a gift for setting up structures that help students learn.”
—Waverly Fitzgerald, Writer-in-Residence, Richard Hugo House.
“When Alle spoke to my nonfiction writing class at the University of Washington, she was at once inspiring, funny, and concrete. She arrived highly prepared and provided a map of publications, what type of material they publish, and how a writers approaches them most effectively. She had designed her presentation to draw forth student participation and used specific examples drawn from students’ experiences and needs. Her presentation was extremely valuable.”
—Carolyn McConnell, former Senior Editor, YES! Magazine.
Comments from students:
- “My pitch was exploded, re-assembled, and profoundly changed.”
- “I learned a great deal about how agent meetings at conferences work.”
- “The best part was seeing how dramatically one student’s pitch changed when given feedback from Alle.”
- “I learned the basics of developing a pitch, what to do, what not to do, definitions of genres, differences between non-fiction and fiction pitches.”
Alle C. Hall 