Creative Expression with The Casual Word™

Join Langley “Casual Word” Shazor for a day of learning about poetry, prose, and typewriters. The goal of this class will be to help students break past the common obstacles that plague young writers: peer review, in writing revision, vocabulary, perfectionism, etc. This class is not designed to increase technical writing ability, but to help students tap into their creative capacity. Let’s overcome fear and harness true creativity.

Agenda:

• 4pm – Introduction
• 4:30pm – Q&A
• 5pm – writing
• 6pm – Conclusion

15 typewriters, along with paper, and recycle boxes will be provided. Students keep all written work & have the opportunity to be featured on casualword.com’s poet of the week column.  There is no cost but pre-registration is required. Please contact Stella Robinette for detail and to register: stella@hopetricities.com or 423-276-6541

Information on Langley Shazor, who the launched The Casual Word, LLC in Jan of this year:

Langley was raised in Bristol, VA; after several years of living and serving in Abingdon, VA, he has come back to his roots. Langley is an advocate for performing arts, education, community involvement, and sustainable economic development. Before joining Bristol Virginia Public Schools, he worked as a process engineer, specializing in system automation, data mining, and platform development before moving on to operations and strategic planning. His hobbies are writing, film photography, and physical wellness training. He has a deep appreciation for culture, history, philosophy, science, and religions. An avid reader, he is passionate about learning all that he can and imparting that knowledge; breaking down stereotypes, creating social awareness, enlightenment, human rights, and helping those less fortunate are his life’s quests. Langley has a particularly strong burden for empowering today’s youth and encouraging their interests in the arts. A lover of all things antiquated, he is an avid typewriter collector, something that has only fueled his affinity for writing and encouraging others to write as well. Typewriters being his tool of choice for his craft, Langley has been able to bring a forgotten medium back to life and give it relevance in this, ever growing, digital world.

His latest ventures continue to push the legitimacy of “unplugging”; again turning to typewriters to bring people together, propagating interpersonal interactions, creativity, conversation, and building a stronger community. It is his goal to continue to push the boundaries of economics and social norms to continue to create new and diverse endeavors for today and tomorrow’s generations. The first of these ventures was the founding of the Virginia Middle School Writing Club, where students use typewriters to express themselves creatively with poetry and short stories. In its first year, the club was able to publish three journals.

Langley has been published numerous times on whispersinthewind333.blogspot.com and socialjusticepoetry.com. He is a monthly columnist for Inner Child Magazine (innerchildmagazine.com) with his own column, Confessions from a Human; a column of personal reflections and memoirs. He is also a weekly columnist for The Loafer Magazine (theloaferonline.com), where he has created his own column for poetry called The Casual Word. Langley also created and hosts his own talk show on YouTube, also entitled The Casual Word; a platform for uplifting, encouragement, knowledge and support for the everyday individual.