.
WRITING
WORKSHOP
The
Writing Circle
Conducted by: Ellen Schmidt
The Writing Circle is a time to relax and write from the heart in a warm, supportive, and stimulating environment. Each day there will be a new spark to kindle your memories and ideas. Your best writing will come out of things that you know intimately and about which you care deeply. You may write about happenings in your life that are true, partially true, totally made up, or a combination - from your own perspective or someone else’s. There is deeper truth to what you write whether it is actual or fictional. I encourage people to experiment with new as well as comfortable forms.
People write differently than they talk. When people feel safe from their own and others’ judgments, they amaze themselves and each other with their clarity, imagery, humor, poignancy, and immediacy. I am continually awed by what people create given opportunity, stimulus, and encouragement.
Comments by participants in Ellen Schmidt’s workshops can be found at her website:
www.WritingRoomWorkshops.com
----
 Since
I was a child there’s been a pencil, pad, and flashlight next to
my bed. Sometimes I
turn the light off only to turn it right back on again to scratch
down another thought. For
the past 20 years I have led and participated in writing workshops,
including leading the Writing Circle at LOAS II.
My background includes:
Many years teaching early childhood education, special
education, German, and teacher education. For 15 years I was the
education director in a counseling center.
Scribbly
spiral notebooks, clean worked-on stories, a few of them for
children, some poems, journals of the first 8 or so years of my
children’s lives, and a long memoir written over a year’s time
helped to create clarity for me and I hope they have provided some
insights for those who have read them as well.
While on the Editorial Board of First Teacher I
wrote a dozen articles drawing on my teaching experiences with young
children and my observations as a mother.
Tufts Alumni Magazine carried an article on my
life as a student living abroad during the Vietnam War.
“Intergenerational Living,” published in Mothering,
crystallized my experiences as an adult in my bilingual,
intergenerational family.
In recent years I have been privileged to help nursing home
residents to write their life stories near the end of their lives.
I
am especially interested in the ‘midwifery’ of writing.
We know so little of others until we hear their stories.
Anyone who has been a child and has lived life has stories to
tell. We’re busy
telling ourselves (dream) stories even when we are asleep.
It’s exciting getting to know people by listening deeply
and carefully to their writing voices.
I am grateful for the opportunity to stimulate and hearten
others as they discover and express themselves, sometimes breaking
through a feeling of isolation, as their unique experiences and
perceptions unfold.
The information on this page is kept as current as possible.
Workshops and workshop leaders are subject to change without notice.
|
