what's a bog bodies press workshop anyway?

we started bog bodies press because we believe that everyone is a storyteller - the longer we continue with the press, the more this belief reinforces itself. with the work we’ve published, we’ve seen that a good story rarely needs to fit into the strict framework of literature - the stories we have access to can show us things we’ve never imagined and reflect parts of ourselves we thought we’d never see, whether they arrive in our hands as a novel, an essay, a handwritten poem, a notes app list or a single sentence.

the way in which traditional literature separates readers from authors often makes us feel detached from the impact our own words can have - in our workshops, we aim to reconnect people with their collective storytelling power and show them that the barriers to entry are really just imaginary.

our latest workshop entitled ‘co-create and publish’ took place during passa porta’s literature festival. we got to work with 14 wonderful participants and challenge them to build bridges between their work through text, illustration or graphics, and craft a publication together over the course of the afternoon. in true bog bodies style, our definition of “work” was a very broad one - we saw everything from pieces of journalism to asemic writing, song lyrics and scans of special keepsakes.

when designing mnemotope, we always try to find the shadows of the pieces our contributors share with us, and pair them with other pieces whose shadows seem to cross somehow - that isn’t always thematic. so much of literature’s power is in what it leaves unsaid, and the shadows of these stories reach far beyond definable themes. often, we end up pairing pieces together because certain sentences allow us to build a poetic bridge from one to the other, sometimes because the images they conjure up feel like they come from the same world and sometimes because they are two opposite sides of the same coin. when passa porta approached us for this workshop and told us the theme of their festival was ‘ghosts’, we knew that we wanted to challenge our participants to face the ghosts of their work and find ways to connect them with one another.

over the course of four(ish) hours, we crafted a publication together under a brand new imprint - lunchbreak press. our wonderful participants built bridges in the most unlikely places, and allowed their work to sit amongst (and occasionally overlapping with) the brilliantly varied work of their colleagues for the day. we got to see a publication that is much bigger than the sum of its parts, and left ever more convinced of just how important collectivity in storytelling is.

these workshops are truly some of our favourite things to do - if you have an idea for one or would like us to host one with your organisation, get in touch with us via hello@bogbodiespress.com!

stay tuned here and on our instagram for the next one (and our other events!) if you’d like to participate - we’re scheming and plotting many more real-life gatherings in the very near future.

bisou!!!

your bog bodies

lilou & réi