Writing to Prompts Workshops
My Writing to Prompts Workshops are designed after the method developed by Pat Schneider, founder of Amherst Writers & Artists, to help us find our truest voices, access our deepest creativity, and silence our inner critics. The idea behind Pat’s approach–and mine–is that we all learn from accessing the unconscious and exploring new genres. For this reason, the workshop is open to writers of all genres and levels of experience.
What happens in an actual workshop? I open by giving a prompt followed by a 20-30 minute writing period.
• You are completely free to ignore the prompt if you’d rather write about something else.
• We read what we’ve written, aloud, though no one is required to read aloud.
• We limit discussion to positive feedback ONLY. Rather than be instantly critical, we focus on what we love, what we remember, what works. Critiques can come later, with subsequent drafts. We take a break before writing and reading in response to another prompt.
• The workshop leader (Carol) also writes and reads.
• We maintain confidentiality. What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop.
• By the end of the 8 or 10-week session, we will have generated a trove of rich material as well as new confidence in our writing voices. This past session several of us got inspired to be part of national novel writing month. We generated lots of great material–drafts of books!
I'm happy to be part of this collection of personal stories, a collaboration involving over 60 teachers of memoir from around the world. The book is published independently by the Birren Center for Autobiographical Writing, through which the authors are certified to teach.
A unique and beautiful exploration of Helen Keller's abiding friendship with prominent journalist Ed Chamberlin–and much more about Keller's struggles, passions, and values. The author is Chamberiin's great-great-granddaughter.
On August 8, 2020, in pandemic heat, I introduced Kristen Rademacher (via Zoom)at the launch party for From the Lake
House, A Mother’s Odyssey of Loss and Love, her wrenching memoir. Flyleaf Books, our hopping indie bookstore here in Chapel Hill, NC, hosted the event. A large crowd from across the country and around the world tuned in for the inspiring multi-media event.
This poignant memoir gives a boy's view of life in Nazi-held Prague and his escape to freedom in a challenging America.
An award winning collection of powerful stories about serving the many needs of elderly and indigent patients, as one of America's first gerontological nurse practitioners.
Essays by women ministers about their challenges and victories in answering the call to ministry.
A mother's 40-year struggle to raise an autistic son – and to grow up herself.
This idyllic memoir recollects the sweet and simple summer pleasures of family life in mid-century Cape Cod.
If you love your pets and make sacrifices for them, you will adore this lively book about a family's needy cats.
The history of a women's shelter in Birmingham, Alabama, as told through many voices.
William Buffett's short essays on nearly everything, arranged as an alphabet book.
Essays about one man's dimensional life including some of his favorite recipes.
