Let me reintroduce myself. It’s a new year, and it’s good to remember who one is.
Bending Tree Education is myself, Irene Lyla Lee. I am a writer of stories, environmental, and art articles, and book reviews (find out more about my writing practice here). I love bookmaking, and, lately, puppetry. I have an expertise in folklore, with an interest in how folklore intersects with the natural world. I understand stories as points of connection to the natural growths and fluctuations of the world. In telling and writing stories, we can understand our place in the natural environment.
On a practical level, I am trained at Reading Rescue, an early reader intervention program, and I have helped several students with their ISEE and SSAT tests. I am an organizer with the Brooklyn Women’s Writing Group, and I have worked with high school students on reading analysis, critique, as well as adults on their writing practice and bookmaking projects.
Reach out to Bending Tree Education for tutoring or consultation, and check out this season’s Book Club (!) and Workshops!
Workshops in Spring 2023:
email bending.tree.education@gmail.com to register
Teen Book Club (Free): This book club will be facilitated with myself, and fellow writer and teacher, Sebastian Sarti. The program would be a monthly book club for teenagers. We will meet from January through May. For each meeting we will focus on an innovative and under-read novel, five in all. The books we are considering are Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Gerald Murnane’s The Plains, Clarice Lispector’s The Hour of the Star, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, and Amos Tutuola’s My LIfe in the Bush of Ghosts. We hope to host between 10 and 15 high school students who want to find a place to discuss literature in a way that is formal but more relaxed than their high school environment. We will manage the logistics and facilitate the conversation, but our goal is to have the discussion be student-led. If it’s a success for those five months, we’d like to continue it beyond that with new books. We are working with Books Are Magic in Brooklyn Heights for the location for this book club.
Once a month: Last Sunday in January – Last Sunday in May.
Brooklyn Writer’s Workshop ($100 registration, Virtual): for writers 16 and up of all forms and levels who are working on a specific project. This workshop is structured with time for writing, critique, and readings. We will finish up with a clear cut publishing plan (which could be personal, academic, public or otherwise).Thursdays: January 19 – February 16,
6pm – 8pm
Tales of the World ($100 registration, Virtual): For students ages 14 – 18. This writing workshop is a hybrid between research and storytelling. We will be exploring folktales from the cultures of the participants’ descent. Throughout this workshop students will research their heritage from an environmental perspective and write their own versions of the stories and folklore they find. Very often within folk tradition there is a well of wisdom and lessons. This workshop will search for wisdom specifically about the natural environment, gods, goddesses and landforms.
Thursday evenings: 6-8pm, March
How Books Tell Stories ($100 registration): Students ages 8-10 Using stories and songs as our base, participants will write short stories and make them into book structures. The purpose of the course is for students to gain an understanding of book forms, and introduce the concept that the structure of the book affects how a story is disseminated. In addition to meeting literary and writing requirements, the students will learn a little about the history of the book, and practice fine motor functions through bookmaking. Location, TBD.
Five Sundays in April
Bending Tree Education 