Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Fall into Focus program / OCTOBER 2023
Alice Hafer
USA
strengthfollows.wordpress.com/writing-portfolio/
About
Alice studied creative writing at Florida State University and
has an MA in Creative Writing and Screenwriting from both
Goldsmiths and City University in London. Simultaneously
pursuing a career as a professional rock climber and outdoor
journalist, she’s lived in more than 12 countries to write
and climb. Her writing has been featured in UKClimbing,
Goldfish Magazine, and Project Magazine, and her debut film
STUCK won the People’s Choice Award at ShAFF in 2017.
She is currently a writer for Outdoors and Moja Gear and is
currently working on her first book, a memoir about mental
illness, trauma, family systems, and the inapt treatment of
the mentally unwell.
Alice’s work aims to tell raw stories that question the
framework and habits of popularized Western society,
from a cultural avoidance of death to programmed hidden
silent suffering, by looking to philosophy, research, and
anthropology to appraise the modern world.
Whispers at Midnight
While I was at Arteles I wrote for countless hours drafting
my memoir in between luscious dips into drawing, making
collages, writing music, and exploring nature. The energy
in the forest and the community of other artists brought
inspiration in all forms. Writing as a form became not enough
– poems wrote themselves, and images and sounds to make
surfaced. I completed the first draft of my memoir, spending
nights reading my father’s journals and discovering old
photos. Experimenting with writing from a dream state, I
found the memoir morphed into its own character and began
to write back. Before the residency, I was unable to write
difficult scenes and recall painful memories. Arteles brought
the creative space and magic to tackle the wrenching parts.
Now at the draft stage, the memoir has taken on life, a
personality and I cannot wait to see where it ends.