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Katrina Kittle

The Pursuit of Happiness

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How happy are you right now? Are you struggling with the current events? Feeling fatigue from the constant barrage of bad news and the energy it takes to resist? Would you like to feel more positive (without giving up your awareness or fight)?

Your happiness is not a frivolous, expendable luxury. The Pursuit of Happiness is one of our inalienable rights and—along with its first cousin, Gratitude–is a powerful tool that can lead to improvements in your immune system, relationships, sleep, decision-making, creativity, and productivity…plus it’s FUN. The problem is, too few of us pursue it. You can make your own personal happiness a priority no matter what else is happening in the world–you don’t have to be in denial, but you also don’t have to deprive yourself. Pursuing happiness is part of self-care.

If you have just two hours on a Wednesday evening to commit to yourself, join novelist/teacher/speaker Katrina Kittle to talk about happiness, ways to get happiness, how much happiness affects every part of our lives, and most importantly: how we deserve it. Focus on self-care in tough times with Katrina Kittle’s  HAPPY CLASS.
August 30, 6:30-8:30 at the Springboro DLM.

This will NOT be one of those stressful “57 Habits of Very Furiously Happy People” that leaves you more stressed out and gives you more work to add to your already overloaded schedule. This fun, informal workshop combines story-telling, exercises, and plenty of brainstorming, interaction, and sharing to help you chase joy. Oh, and there will be chocolate (a thing that make Katrina very happy).

For questions or more information about Katrina, please go to: www.katrinakittle.com

Register online here, you’ll receive a confirmation email from Katrina within 24 hours. If you opt to pay by check, that email message will include a mailing address.

Leap and the Net Will Appear in 2017!

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Ready to make some real changes in the New Year? It’s a powerful time to check in with yourself and reassess where you want to be. Do you feel stuck? Unhappy with an aspect (or two or ten) of your current life but aren’t sure how to change? Do you feel restless about wanting change but aren’t really sure what to do or how to start? Been listing the same New Year’s resolutions year after year with no progress?
Local author, Katrina Kittle, is offering a class just for you! Her “Leap & the Net Will Appear“ class is all about creating positive change so that you’re moving closer to living the life you want.  Now this class can be easily misinterpreted as, “Oh, just do what you want, and someone will swoop in to rescue you” but the real secret is that you weave the nets yourself—and taking a leap is what jump-starts you into action. Often, the most transforming change in our lives comes from hardship and heartache. During this class, you will look at how past failures can be our greatest teachers, then take that a step further by examining how we can galvanize our own life changes rather than waiting around for a big event to shake up and “fix” our lives. We’ll look at what stops us from risking change and how to overcome those obstacles. A series of exercises will provide insight, inspiration, and small doable steps to start weaving the nets for your own leaps…so you can create the life you love.
Leap & the Net Will Appear: Steps for Creating Positive Change
A 3-week course
Mondays, January 9, 16, and 23
6:30 — 8:30 PM
Location: The conference room in the Oakwood Starbucks, 2424 Far Hills Avenue, Dayton, OH 45419
$145 for the full course. Once you register, you will be invoiced within 24 hours and can pay through check or PayPal.PLEASE REGISTER USING THE FORM BELOW. For questions, please email [email protected]. For more information about Katrina, please go to www.katrinakittle.com

So You Wanna Write?

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The covers of 4 of the 5 published novels Katrina Kittle has published.

If you ever suspected that there might be a writer lurking somewhere inside you, or perhaps harbored a secret notebook of half-started stories, a class is coming up that is just for you! Local author, speaker and educator, Katrina Kittle, leads a two-hour Words Worth Workshop entitled “So You Wanna Write?” You’ll release the writer within through creative prompts to get the words flowing, and will learn strategies to keep the muse turned on. This class is for anyone who longs to write but doesn’t know where to start, and for writers who have dabbled but lost their way. WARNING: this workshop just might seduce you into a life-long love affair with writing!

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Katrina Kittle, an award-winnging local author, educator and speaker.

HOW TO GO?

When: Tuesday August 30, 2016. 6:30-8:30pm

Location: Oakwood Starbucks, 2424 Far Hills Avenue, Dayton, OH 45419

Price: $45  (to register, click here or call 937-475-5177)

For a full list of Words Worth fall writing workshops, click here.

About the Instructor: Katrina Kittle is the author of five novels—Traveling Light, Two Truths and a Lie, The Kindness of Strangers, The Blessings of the Animals, andReasons to Be Happy. The Kindness of Strangers won the 2006 Great Lakes Book Award for Fiction. Katrina teaches creative writing workshops from the third grade to retirement communities, focusing on craft and motivation (and is especially good at jumpstarting stalled writers). She teaches in the Dayton-Cincinnati area through Word’s Worth Writing Connections and through online coaching to writers anywhere. She also offers manuscript consultations through Write Sisters Consulting and is a public speaker. For a fun and enlightening interview with Gem City Podcast, click here.

 

Leap and the Net Will Appear Workshop

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Screen Shot 2016-06-17 at 11.37.43 AMRenowned local author and teacher, Katrina Kittle is presenting a new life workshop entitled LEAP & THE NET WILL APPEAR: Steps for Creating Positive Change. This is the first time the class has been presented as a one-day retreat on Saturday June 25th. Previous classes have been presented as a 3 part series. It’s exciting to get a whole day to learn, explore and evolve!

When I spoke with Katrina about this workshop, she explained: “This is a life class for anyone who’s feeling stuck or craving change in any aspect of their life. Someone asked me if the workshop was encouraging people to leave their jobs, but that’s not the focus at all. The change you seek can be ANY aspect of your life: personal, professional, fitness, relationships. One woman in my first group wanted to “give back,” she was tired of putting “volunteer” on her New Year’s resolutions year after year but not doing it. She has since created two libraries for St. Vincent’s homeless shelter. How cool is that? I really love doing it and I really feel it helps people.

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Katrina Kittle is a local autor, teacher and presenter at Dayton’s Tedx event

Elizabeth Gilbert says “I’ve never seen any life transformation that didn’t begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit.” That really resonated with Katrina a few years back. She does exercises that help people actually name what they want, what’s in their way (pretty often, our own bullshit!), and how to overcome those obstacles.

You know how so many life-shaping transformations happen because of personal disasters, heartbreaks, and hardships? Those external events push us off the cliff into change and that’s why so many of us resist creating our own change–we picture it being something huge and reckless like “I have to quit my job!” “I have to leave my partner!” or “I have to leave the country!” and it overwhelms us. But the reality is we can transform our lives and galvanize change through small doable steps. Those steps establish habits. That habit gathers momentum. An object in motion stays in motion.

The workshop will take place at the Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Centerville (8690 Yankee Street). They are offering us a comfortable, private space with a full working kitchen. Coffee and water will be provided, and you may bring your own lunch (there is a fridge and microwave), or add $10 to your registration for a box lunch from Boosalis Baking & Cafe (your specific order will be collected closer to the workshop date, but feel free to check out their website to see your yummy lunch options).

How to go?

Saturday, June 25, 2016
9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: The Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Centerville
Cost: $150

Please register using the form here. For questions, please email [email protected]. For more information about Katrina, please go to www.katrinakittle.com. To learn about Katrina, you can also listen to her recent interview with Gem City Podcast below!

http://gemcitypodcast.com/?p=2522

ON STAGE DAYTON REVIEW: 100 Saints You Should Know (Dayton Theatre Guild)

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(l to r): Barbara Jorgensen, Maximillian Santucci, Alex Carmichal, Katrina Kittle, Corinne Engber in 100 Saints You Should Know (Photo by Craig Roberts)

(l to r): Barbara Jorgensen, Maximillian Santucci, Alex Carmichal, Katrina Kittle, Corinne Engber in 100 Saints You Should Know (Photo by Craig Roberts)

Kate Fodor’s darkly comedic 2007 character study “100 Saints You Should Know,” currently receiving a fine regional premiere at the Dayton Theatre Guild, brings faith, faithlessness and forgiveness to the forefront in an engaging and compelling fashion under the delicate direction of Ellen Finch.

Alex Carmichal, who left an indelible impression earlier this season as the titular villain of the Dayton Playhouse’s production of “Dracula,” brings understated potency to his excellently conflicted portrayal of Father Matthew McNally, the play’s centerpiece. Grappling with unmentionable desires that betray his duties, a predictable yet reasonable notion, Matthew leaves his parish without a game plan for the future, causing him to question his beliefs as never before while returning to his childhood home for refuge. The reason behind Matthew’s hurried, vague departure, involving the provocative artwork of George Platt Lynes, is reserved for late Act 1, but Carmichal’s astutely perplexing nature remains thoroughly intriguing, especially as Matthew finds solace in reading “Dark Night of the Soul” and comes to grips with the acknowledgement that his spirituality, his connection to God, is completely broken. Amiable cleaning woman and single mom Theresa (a first-rate, emotionally distressed Katrina Kittle) inquisitively looks to Matthew for answers to her burgeoning thoughts of religion, but Fodor primarily keeps their budding relationship and insightful faith discussions ambiguous, which some may find perturbing. After all, this lonely pair feels very bonded as lost souls in search of intimacy and purpose, elements heartwarmingly fueled by Carmichal and Kittle’s innate chemistry.

Kittle also establishes a wonderfully exasperating rapport with the sassy Corinne Engber as Abby, Theresa’s startlingly rebellious, foul-mouthed 16-year-old daughter who deeply resents her and their meager existence. Theresa and Abby’s bickering showdowns are off-putting (Abby is one of the nastiest characters to come along in years), but Kittle and Engber build to a heartfelt climax nonetheless as Abby particularly grows to understand the cost of being utterly mean-spirited for selfish gain. The cast also includes the very endearing Maximillian Santucci as the gawky, gullible Garrett, a sexually confused delivery boy ridiculed by Abby to devastating proportions, and the marvelously grounded Barbara Jorgensen as Matthew’s stern, caring, Scrabble-adoring Irish mother Coleen, who has difficulty grasping his sudden change of heart and the sheer importance of acceptance.

Marcia Nowik’s efficient set as well as Patrick Hayes’ appropriate costumes and believably bloodied makeup for Santucci are also significant as this impactful tale of inner fulfillment runs its surprisingly heartbreaking course.

“100 Saints You Should Know” continues through March 10 at the Dayton Theatre Guild, 430 Wayne Ave., Dayton. Performances are Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 5 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Act One: 60 minutes; Act Two: 45 minutes. Cost: $18 for adults, $16 for seniors and $11 for students. For tickets or more information, call (937) 278-5993 or visit online at www.daytontheatreguild.org. Also, in conjunction with the Dayton Visual Arts Center, the Guild will display the works of local artist C.A. Tiedemann in its lobby during the run of “100 Saints,” which contains mature subject matter.

 

 

Traveling Light & Corpus Christi

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I started Katrina Kittle’s first novel, Traveling  Light on Friday and stayed up travelinglightto finish it on Saturday evening.  Katrina Kittle is a Dayton native who continues to live in the region, working on her fourth novel and recently acting in several local theatre productions.  I ran across her books while surfing Amazon for a good read, not even realizing she is a local author.  I went to the library with the intention of borrowing Two Truths and a Lie but it was not on the shelf and thus I picked up Traveling Light.  It felt as though I was supposed to be reading that book this weekend.

On Saturday night we went to the Dayton Playhouse to see Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi, a controversial passion play that depicts Jesus and the apostles as gay men.  There were several parallels between the two works and it was an amazing opportunity to experience them intertwined.  Both the book and the play are significantly about the prejudices that exist against homosexuals and the concept that love can be pure in any form.    Both works explore issues of acceptance and have heroes that teach of unconditional love.  There are even parallel scenes in the book and play where passages from the bible are used to both condemn and defend homosexuality, highlighting the propensity to pick and choose bible verses to support a point of view.

As we walked toward the theatre on Saturday evening, we were greeted warmly by two members of the Dayton Playhouse.  Just behind the greeters stood several protestors… who really were not protesting as much as holding signs that quoted the bible.  It was actually very peaceful and the chair of the Dayton Playhouse summed it up well by saying that the protestors had as much right to be there as they did in putting on the play.  It made me very proud of my city that the cast and crew had the courage to put on such a controversial play… and that the protestors were not hateful or cruel in their demonstrations.

Tolerance is generally the first step of the journey that leads to acceptance and respect.  In Kittle’s novel, that theme is told through several characters.  One young character is full of hate but has a life changing experience that teaches him tolerance.  The matriarchal figure loved her gay grandson but barely tolerated his lifestyle and partner; in the end she came to respect and accept them as a couple, recognizing the persecution of gays as being as tragic as the persecution of Jews during WWII.  Last night at the show, there was tolerance between the protestors and the theatre.  The play itself was a testament depicting the journey of persecution, tolerance, love and acceptance.

The parallels that could be made between the main characters of the play and the hero in the novel are amazing.  Joshua (Jesus) in the play is teaching unconditional love, while Todd and Jacob epitomize unconditional love in the book.  Both Joshua and Todd see the beauty in their persecutors and suffer immensely at death, while never losing their faith in humanity.   Todd is revered by his family as virtually without fault, as is Joshua by the disciples.

Some of the novel’s critics saw Todd’s character as a caricature and attributed the sparse character development to the fact that is was Kittle’s first novel.  I wonder if perhaps Todd and Jacob are intended to represent characters we all know well within our culture and that is why further development wasn’t necessary.   I am also curious if Kittle was at all influenced by Terrance McNally’s script or if the similarities are merely a result of my interpretation.  Regardless, I look forward to reading more work from this very compelling author, and possibly seeking her out at the Word’s Worth Writing Center where she is currently teaching seminars.