This five-week generative writing workshop explores the interplay between our physical surroundings and inner world. Through direct engagement with public environments, we will observe how walking, loitering, shopping, and commuting can inspire writing. How do these everyday movements shape perception, memory, and narrative?

Observations and experience will become the foundation for new writing, unfolding into meditative episodes, digressive accounts, and stream-of-consciousness vignettes that capture lived experience and the movement of thought.

Each session will unfold in three parts: moving through public spaces to observe and gather material, a focused writing period with prompts, and opportunities to share work for those who wish.

This class is open to writers and artists of any level interested in deepening their engagement with space, perception, and writing.

Short, optional assigned readings will serve as inspiration, featuring authors such as Nicholson Baker, Teju Cole, Willa Cather, Virginia Woolf, and W.G. Sebald, among others.

By the end of the course, students will leave with a body of new writing, fresh observational tools, and a renewed awareness of how movement shapes creative practice.

• Understand the various methods and strategies for employing memory in personal writing.
• Develop strategies, techniques, and methods for a generative writing practice.
• Become familiar with a breadth of writers using public space as a source material for their practices.
• To gain a deeper appreciation of one’s lived experience and surroundings.
• Develop writing strategies rooted in observation, memory, personal experience, and the reclamation of attention.

Week 1 – Recollecting

Class overview. Discussion of writing techniques and strategies for generating material. Exploring personal memory as a foundation for writing.

Week 2 – Walking

Movement through the landscape as a guide for writing and thought.

Week 3 – Loitering

Hanging out in public space as a means of generating writing and deep noticing.

Week 4 – Browsing

How shopping, browsing, and objects serve as prompts for memory, internal dialogue, and narrative.

Week 5 – Commuting

The boredom of transit, its constraints, and the writing it can produce.

Open City by Teju Cole
The Mezzanine by Nicholson
Baker Mrs. Dalloway by Virigina Woolf
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald

Alex Wolfe is an artist and writer from Iowa, USA, living in New York City. His writing and photography explore the relationship between movement, the built environment, and memory.

Notable walks include 180 miles from Brooklyn to Philadelphia (9 days), 115 miles across Los Angeles (7 days), 160 miles along the entire length of Long Island (9 days), and 400 miles through 10 East Coast cities (30 days). I am also the founder and former editor of Pedestrian, a magazine for people who like to walk and move (RIP).

His work is held in the collections of the New York Public Library and the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection. It has also been featured in Grist, Untapped Journal, and, NPR.

He has guest lectured at and led walks for institutions and organizations including Princeton University, the Swiss Institute, Salomon Shoes, the Municipal Art Society of New York, Index, and Parsons School of Design.

Index scholarships are designed to benefit underrepresented groups, BIPOC members of our community, and those for whom the class price is not accessible. These need-based scholarships will go to the candidates who best demonstrate why they should be chosen for the free spot to our class based on the following criteria:

• Belong to groups that are traditionally underrepresented in the graphic design and creative industries
• Do not have jobs that would pay for these courses as professional development
• Cannot independently afford the class at list price
• Share our value of intentional community

The number of selected applicants chosen is subject to the discretion of Index and the instructor, but every course will select at least one. Apply for a scholarship here. Applications close April 14th.

We get that things come up, but we rely on headcounts in our programs to survive as a business. If you request a refund...

More than 4 weeks before offering begins → 100% refund

More than 2 weeks before offering begins → 50% refund

Fewer than 2 weeks before offering begins → No refund

Thanks for understanding and for supporting our ability to provide cool offerings through your purchase.