Wednesday, July 9, I’m hosting a free two-hour generative writing workshop for writers of all levels who are interested in exploring writing as a tool for healing and shame resilience. This offering is inspired by my book Shame on You: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification and is grounded in the belief that storytelling can be a path to individual discovery, personal transformation, and political change.

We’ll begin with a short talk related to how shame operates in our lives and in society—and how writing can help us cultivate resilience, authenticity, a sense of belonging without othering, and the capacity for vulnerability and empathy that extends beyond the self to foster collective healing. Then, I’ll offer a generative prompt and you'll have about 15 minutes to write. If you’d like to share, you’ll be invited to do so—and we’ll offer warm, encouraging feedback— but if you’d rather keep your writing private, that’s okay, too. After a short break, we'll do it again.

The workshop is for anyone seeking to transmute shame into compassion and clarity and give voice to the stories we’ve been taught to silence. Writers of all levels and experiences are welcome.

I’m calling it Write It Anyway—in defiance of all the things that keep us from putting pen to page: lack of time, self-doubt, fear, perfectionism, and the shame that tells us our stories don’t matter. They do. Come write yours.