Our writing often emerges as a response to traumatic experiences or difficult emotions we have worked to resist and avoid. While our writing can describe painful experiences vividly and creatively, it can also help us make sense of such experiences through understanding them more fully or finding meaning in our suffering.

In this generative writing workshop, we will explore the practice of writing through painful/traumatic personal experiences, as writer bell hooks says, “to rescue” ourselves. Together we will examine the craft and content of texts in all genres that voice difficult experiences where the writers emerge on the other side of pain. Through sharing our writing, we ground our experiences in connection and interconnection. Writing about difficult experiences can be triggering, so please prioritize your own emotional well-being by finding a level of emotional safety that works for you and to be mindful of your own boundaries and limitations.

Please bring a short excerpt from a text that speaks to a painful/traumatic experience.