Free Trauma Writing Workshop Series

Individual Workshop Descriptions:

Workshop 1 — May 16th: Haunted House Costume Party

Sorrow your fears in the voice of Ted Lasso, epic your father's sins through Medusa, Odysseus your grief through the voice of the Trojan Horse. Writing in persona can help us spark the emotional truths of our memories through other bodies and tongues. We can speak without full disclosure. We can myth ourselves into light.

This workshop helps you step into the haunted houses of your memories and reveal the ghosts in the attics without ever having to tell us exactly what you found there.

Workshop 2 — May 30th: Your Grocery List May be an Elegy

Write a how-to guide on how to survive a rainstorm that really tells the story about you surviving them.

Write a grocery list for the last day of your life that really tells the story of how scared you are of letting them down.

Learn how to write about your emotions around the events rather than every single detail of the event itself.

Workshop 3 — June 13th: Soundtrack Your Way into a Spell

It was the cold of 1977 that Kate Bush high-kicked herself into the ghost of Cathy, mourning a haunted love that keeps being unburied. That song has transported me back to many old homes, smells, and sparks.

Sometimes sound is a soundtrack, sometimes a coo, a lullaby, a rift, a requiem. In this workshop, we will explore song as muse, as soma, as spell to body memories to the surface.

Workshop 4 — June 27th: Haunting Through the Ghost of You

Sign up because you're the type of ghost who wants to haunt directly. No mediation. You're a bit like Casper in that way, aren't you? Get access to what may feel otherwise unsayable.

Writing in the second person is often a major no-no in creative writing instruction. It's not wrong, it's just a bit tricky. But when done right, it may haunt you, and it may open up some space for interacting with someone or something in ways other points of view would not allow if you said "I."