May Classes.
The Magician’s Sabbath
May 1st | 6:30pm-8:30pm
Friends, I can’t think of when I’ve needed spring more than this year. Spring will bring regrowth for all things and us, I believe. Growth comes whether we seek it or not, but I like to be the architect of my growth, through writing, my primary creative outlet. This is what I can offer to Table Conversations.
Come with me this May on a loosely guided journey—with readings, Tarot, astrology, and art for inspiration—to reinvent yourself as the god, monster, other uber celebrity of your imagination. You will generate three new pieces of writing, but better yet, discover a powerful new persona-self who can help you expand.
Objectives:
• We will exercise imagination as a space of creation for an alternate universe.
• In that universe, we will turn the kaleidoscope of our beautiful selves.
• But instead of writing from the I, we will move towards creating a persona self who may share and amplify some aspects of who we are.
Anthony DiPietro is a gay sex poet and arts administrator originally from Providence, Rhode Island. He has lived throughout New England and in California, New York, Oregon, and Tennessee. A graduate of Brown University with honors in creative writing, he also earned a creative writing MFA at Stony Brook University. Now deputy director of Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, he resides in Worcester, MA. He composed his 2021 chapbook And Walk Through (Seven Kitchens Press) on a typewriter during the pandemic lockdowns. kiss & release (Unsolicited Press, 2024) is his debut collection. His writing and readings are featured on his website, www.AnthonyWriter.com.
Tarot for Spiritual Activism
May 6th | 6:30pm-8:30pm
Spiritual activism offers a bridge between personal and collective healing as we root deeper into our inherent interconnectedness. In times saturated by violence and upheaval, each of us is called to hone our divine gifts to help create the world anew. How might we collaborate with the archetypes found in tarot to alchemize our sacred rage into action?
In this tarot and writing workshop, we'll find inspiration in the cards that encourage us to embrace the power of resistance and societal transformation. With the Seven of Wands, Justice, and The Queen of Swords as our guides, we'll explore how these and other tarot allies can support our devotion to dismantling white supremacist, colonialist, patriarchal, cis-heteronormative systems and building new foundations for a better future. Our hope is that you'll leave feeling more empowered to share your particular magic as we work together for radical change.
Objectives:
find spiritual guidance and empowerment in the practice of tarot
feel fortified by your spiritual grounding while you sustain activism during troubled times
inspire a sense of expansion for what is possible in the present moment
Lauren Trombino-Walleser is a queer witch, tarot reader, astrologer, reiki master, and writer. She created Heronkind Stories & Healing after 15+ years of personal devotion to energy healing and a lifelong passion for magic. Lauren is deeply honored to share these gifts through one-on-one sessions and community events centered on connecting people with their most authentic selves so we can co-create a more loving, just, and pleasurable future together. Originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Lauren has lived with her wife in Somerville, Massachusetts for over a decade. In all of her work, she hopes to inspire people to take care of the Earth, themselves, and each other.
Zinnia Smith is a writer and educator based in Somerville. She received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Stony Brook University. Her work is published with TSR: The Southampton Review, Voicemail Poems, and Peach Mag, among others. She won Fugue's 2018 writing contest in prose, and her fiction was nominated for Sundress’s Best of the Net 2019. Her fiction is featured in the speculative anthology WORLDS IN WHICH. She received a 2024 Mass Cultural Council Grant for Creative Individuals for the literary arts, and received a 2025 Literature Artist Fellowship grant from the Somerville Arts Council. She’s the founder of the arts pop-up TABLE CONVERSATION and teaches writing independently at arts nonprofits and local businesses. In her free time, she’s tasting wine and walking around aimlessly.
The Song Writer’s Forest
May 19th | 6:30pm-8:30pm
How do you write songs in a hostile world? How do you build a creative practice that feels nourishing and generative rather than extractive and stressful? Amanda and June will take you on a walk through your personal woods, discussing how to gather images, observe and tend the land, and build a relationship with your inner self, even when it’s frightening. This is a songwriting class with the barest of tools: your voices, alone or in a group.
We’ll be doing a few small teacher-led exercises with the intention of having you leave with some musical practices, lyrical ideas, and images you can pull from even after the class is over.
This is a class intended for beginning to intermediate songwriters, but we welcome all levels. You will bring yourself and a notebook as well as your preferred writing tools. If you are able to, make sure that you have a recording application on your phone available to you.
Amanda Lozada is a songwriter who writes songs both for their solo folk-rock project as Lonesome Joan, and co-writes for the indie-rock band Cats On Film.
June Isenhart is also a songwriter who writes and performs “rock-and-roll” music with her band as Miss Bones, and also plays guitar The Michael Character.