(Do Not!) Burn Your Journals

Critical Signals is excited to bring you this six week journaling series in collaboration with author, poet and prolific journal-keeper, Nadine Hura.

“Stealing time to gather the archival evidence that you have lived your life, made choices and survived them, that you have laughed often, grieved hard, loved, lost and dared to love again, could not be further from self-indulgent navel-gazing than the stars. To document your life as a person persisting under colonial capitalist patriarchy is an act of self-preservation, and that - to borrow from Audre Lorde - is ‘an act of political warfare’”

Full of inspiration and hacks to get you writing even when you feel blocked, journals can be the seed-stuff of essays, blogs, short stories, long rants, prose poetry, weird zines and even full length manuscripts. Whether you identify as a writer or would never dare, this space is for everyone who loves language, cares about shit, and wants to learn to work with creative energy to fulfil their potential.

The details:
Starting on Thursday 13th of August, and running through til 24th of September, you can choose to join the afternoon cohort (3pm-5pm) or the evening cohort (6pm-8pm). With only 8 places in each cohort, these are small group sessions designed to be mutually supportive, encouraging and fun. Please check the dates below and only sign up if you can commit to a minimum of 4 of the 6 workshops.

Tickets: This workshop series is intended to support communities whose writing blocks are external and structural as much as they are internal. Accordingly, people experiencing peak colonial oppressions are invited to purchase tickets first. (i​.e. indigenous communities and whānau facing an acute lack of time, money, resource, domestic support, disability and/or identity, language and cultural persecution). The early release ticket period is open now until 2nd August. General tickets will be available from 3rd of August at 9am.

Cost: 

Accessible tickets for unwaged, students, solo-parents and anyone experiencing financial hardship $120 (Payment plans available).

General tickets $250. 

*If tickets still remain inaccessible but you really need a place on this course, we would like to hear from you! Please send us an email.

About Nadine Hura

Nadine works in the intersection between the arts, science, policy, land reclamation and environmental restoration. She is passionate about all forms of indigenous storytelling*, in particular supporting other indigenous writers to enter the world of publishing through zines, chapbooks and other independent pathways. She is a solo Māmā and has written extensively for The Spinoff, E-Tangata and other platforms. In 2025, her collection of essays Slowing the Sun was published by BWB.

*except A.I.

Find out more about the course structure, including a message from Nadine about what to expect, here.

Dates:

Week 1 Thursday 13th August
Week 2 Thursday 20th August
Week 3 Thursday 27th August
Week 4 Thursday 3rd September
BREAK (Thursday 10th Sept)
Week 5 Thursday 17th September
Week 6 Thursday 24th September