Is writing for healing and personal growth, such as journaling, separate from the craft of literary writing? How are the two different—and how might they overlap? In her book, Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives, Louise DeSalvo explores how writers such as Virginia Woolf, Isabelle Allende, Tim O’Brien, Audre Lorde, and others experienced personal transformation through writing, covering such topics as: writing as symbolic repair, qualities of a healing narrative, managing difficult emotions in memoir writing, self-care for writers, and many others. In this workshop, we’ll explore the work of several pioneers in the transformative writing field as well as experiment with some of their tips and techniques.
Note: This workshop is not designed to take the place of personal therapy. In this discussion-based course, writers can expect some in-class writing, reading homework, and positive in-class responses to their work rather than any formal critique.
Required text: Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives, by Louise DeSalvo
Optional Text: Biblio/Poetry Therapy—The Interactive Process, by Arleen McCarty Hynes and Mary Hynes-Berry. Third edition revised and updated by Joy Roulier Sawyer, optional and available from the instructor
