2-day Nonfiction Intensive: Writing the Trauma Essay
Saturday, September 7 and Sunday, September 8 from 12pm-5pm
$249
Writing can be healing. But writing can also re-traumatize, making it difficult to tell the stories that shape us. In this two-day intensive, writers gain an understanding of how the physiological processes of trauma and shame interact with a writing practice. Together, we’ll sidestep trauma writing stumbling blocks by using activities adapted from clinical practice to safely consider the structure of traumatic events. Drawing on published essays primarily about sexual and domestic violence, we’ll do a deep dive into the ways we might frame our experiences of trauma on the page for maximum power. 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.
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.
This class is hosted by Catapult at their headquarters in New York City.
COURSE TAKEAWAYS:
An understanding of how physiological trauma, shame, and social stigma interact with a writing practice
Exercises adapted from clinical practice that sidestep some of the common blocks of trauma writing
Craft tools that help writers see their stories of trauma from new angles, with new potential
A block of time and supportive community for generating and organizing topically-difficult material
A heightened sense of mission around the importance of telling stories of trauma well
Follow-up e-mails with an instructor experienced in trauma writing and trained in trauma-sensitive facilitation
Access to Catapult’s list of writing opportunities and important submission deadlines, as well as a 10% discount on all future Catapult classes
COURSE SKELETON
Day 1:
Introduction to the class and icebreakers
Overview of the physiology of trauma, the impact of shame, and the potential for writing to heal us
Discussion of the “indulgence” of writing trauma and the silencing of our stories
Generative exercises on chronology, chunking, and fragmentation
Self- and perpetrator- characterization in the trauma essay
Day 2:
Framing trauma essays and finding context through research
Generative activity on writing about power
Understanding melodrama: writing attack scenes and near-misses
The role of the writer in shaping cultural conversation about trauma
Katherine E. Standefer's writing appeared in The Best American Essays 2016. Her debut book Lightning Flowers is forthcoming from Little, Brown in 2020 and was shortlisted for the 2018 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize. A Fall 2018 Logan Nonfiction Fellow at The Carey Institute for Global Good, her recent work appears in Virginia Quarterly Review, The New England Review, Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Arizona and teaches in Ashland University's Low-Residency MFA program.
Her unique embodied pedagogy helps writers consider the physiological hurdles, social barriers, and craft challenges to telling stories about the body. She completed more than 30 hours of training at the Arizona Trauma Institute and has extensive experience in writing trauma herself. Check out her website here.
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