Nonfiction of New Consciousness Workshop: Writing About Hard Issues

Strengthen your ability to write about challenging issues that we face in our world today.

A day-long workshop for those who would like to write nonfiction pieces (essays—personal and/or immersive, vignettes, monologues, testimonials, and witness writing) about the hard stuff, particularly issues related to social justice, the natural world (or threats to it), the ways in which climate, class, race, gender, and power issues affect us all.

Too often, we want our writing to do good, to move the needle, to make a difference, but we are paralyzed with a sense of helplessness or feeling of being overwhelmed. Too often, in the face of troubled times, that paralysis prevents us from starting, or finishing, the one thing we might do—put our creative words on the page. In this workshop, we’ll begin to address our resistance to "the hard stuff".

During the workshop, you'll develop new pieces from prompts and models of resilience literature. We'll collectively talk about our passions for change and why/how we should write about those. By the end of the workshop, you'll have read some good stuff, discussed the practices, and drafted new work.