At Harbourfront Centre's Festival of Risk and Failure: BRAVE, I will be writing poems on the spot. I was asked: how does this fits with the theme of risk and failure?

You see a woman sitting in a chair with an empty chair beside her and a sign saying, Poet is Present. It says, "I will write you a poem on the subject of your choosing." Will you sit down? Will you ask for what you need? Will I open up and write what comes, not knowing if there'll be a poem, or if you'll like it? These, to me, are acts of bravery and risk. Play, freedom. We do what we're called to do, without knowing the outcome. And then let go.

Ronna Bloom, 2018

Saturday July 21 -->  3-4pm and 5:30-7pm
Sunday July 22 --> 2-3:30pm and 4:30-6pm
Saturday July 28 --> 11pm to 12:30am and then 1-2am. 
 

Narrative Healthcare Atelier Mount Sinai Psychotherapy Institute 

Visiting Keynote Speaker: Ronald M. Epstein, MD

Course Directors: Allan Peterkin, MD & Michael Roberts, MD

Canada's Only Advanced Training Seminar in Narrative-based Healthcare for Health Practitioners and Educators across Clinical Disciplines

Explore and reflect critically on your clinical practices, challenges, personal and professional growth as health providers using narrative, storytelling and arts-based learning.  This 4 day workshop is designed to help you improve outcomes and to humanize your experiences within complex healthcare contexts. Themes related to relationship-centered care, professionalism, team collaboration and the hidden curriculum will be explored through visual, cinematic and literary texts including fiction, drama and poetry.

This intensive, interactive atelier will apply narrative theory and reflective practice in the contexts of interprofessional patient-centred healthcare, research and education.  It aims to:  enliven your engagement and collaboration as clinicians and educators from all disciplines; support best practices as teachers, clinicians and lifelong learners; transform the paradigm of your daily professional practice with a renewed commitment to the core values of humanistic healthcare.

I will be joining my amazing colleagues to present a workshop at this conference. "Postcards from the Edge: Addressing Compassion Fatigue in Note Form"  will be offered on June 4.

Register here.

The Canadian Association for spiritual Care Conference is being held from April 25-28 in Deerhurst, Ontario. Among the robust selection of arts-based workshops presented, I will be offering "Postcards from the Edge: Addressing Compassion Fatigue in Note Form" twice on April 26.  Keynote speakers are Dr. Allan Peterkin and Dr. Luis Fornazarri.

Deerhurst Resort, Deerhurst Ontario

The International Festival of Authors is taking a delegation of writers to  The Bookworm Literary Festival and I have the complete honour of being part of this group.

The festival will host journalists, novelists, graphic artists, poets, and playwrights from around the world. 

I'll be in three events:

POETS FOR THE PEOPLE  with Ifor ap Glyn, Dai Weina, Ronna Bloom  

POETS AND POETRY IN EDUCATION with Marcel Gauthier, Scot Slaby, Chen Bo, Ronna Bloom, moderated by Simon Shieh

and in CANADA DIVERSE with fellow Canadians Shari Lapena, Sylvain Neuvel

My aim is to stay awake, and to write a few words each day, sharing them here in the news section or tweeting them via @ronnabloom. This, of course assumes, I'll have internet, data, words etc. Stay tuned.