THIS CLASS IS CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19 CONTAINMENT EFFORTS. WE HOPE TO RESCHEDULE IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS AS THE TIMELINE BECOMES CLEARER. IF YOU’RE INTERESTED, STAY IN TOUCH.

May 30 & 31, 11:00am-5:30pm (includes half hour lunch break)

Cost: $444

Our most powerful stories can be the most brutal to write, leaving us frustrated, traumatized, and stuck. What gets in the way? How can we push forward without damaging our mental and physical health? 

In this two-day weekend intensive, we'll explore how physiological trauma and shame interact with a writing practice, using activities adapted from clinical practice to help participants pinpoint what's getting in the way of their storytelling. Then we'll dive into a series of craft exercises that help us uncover new layers and angles. How might adding research help re-frame and de-stigmatize what we've been through? How can embedding the personal within a cultural critique make it more resonant? We'll play with chronology and braiding to discover overlooked narrative arcs, and we'll seek beauty where it seems there shouldn't be any. We'll also bring a fearless eye to our characterizations, scrapping the flat black-and-white renderings we write to protect ourselves, in favor of contradictory and complex characters.

Along the way, we'll explore craft challenges specific to trauma, including the fragmentation of memory, the temptation of melodrama, elevating a personal story into a universal inquiry, and owning on the page our complicated, contradictory selves. Through two days of powerful interactive lectures and exercises that help participants generate, organize, and more deeply understand their material, writers will see new possibilities for their own work.

While everyone will be invited to share their work from in-class prompts, we will not workshop pre-written essays together. Participants should expect to read an assigned packet of published essays in advance of our time together. Though we understand that taking care of yourself sometimes requires stepping away, we do ask that you sign up for this course with the intention to remain for the duration.

.This class is not a support group. Nor is it intended to take the place of mental healthcare. But for those who have already begun to resolve physiological traumas, it will offer a stable, supportive environment to begin writing the stories that, well told, have so much to offer society.

Kati brings to this class more than thirty hours of training at the Arizona Trauma Institute as well as countless hours of her personal work and study. She is a Reiki II practitioner and Certified Sexologist.

This class is hosted at The Attic, part of Archipelago Clubs. If you are a member, book through Archipelago to access this class for free.