S143.
Classroom Sanctuaries: Helping Students to Write About Trauma & Mental Illness
Saturday, March 26, 2022
10:35 am to 11:50 am
In memoir courses, painful experiences can spark powerful stories, yet the classic writing workshop asks college and adult-education students to sit in judgment of one another. They may feel exposed or dump too much information. Depression, self-harm, homophobia, racism—such topics impact storytelling. On this panel, we'll move past workshopping to empathic support, discussing how to create sanctuaries in person or online that foster self-awareness. Bring your questions and passion for teaching.
Participants
Martha Nichols is cofounder of Talking Writing, a nonprofit digital magazine. A longtime journalism instructor at Harvard University Extension School, she is the author of the guide First-Person Journalism and editor of Into Sanity, an anthology of personal essays about mental illness.
Jane McCafferty is the author of two novels and two books of stories. Her work has won awards such as an NEA, the Drue Heinz, two Pushcarts, and others. She writes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction and teaches at Carnegie Mellon.
Beth Richards writes creative nonfiction and teaches academic, technical, professional, and creative writing at the University of Hartford, where she serves as director of the first- and second-year writing programs.
Mark Brazaitis is the author of eight books, including The Incurables: Stories, winner of the 2012 Richard Sullivan Prize, and The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala, winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award. He is a professor of English at West Virginia University.
