Telling the Story of Loss
Exciting news! I’ve teamed up with Claire Bidwell Smith to offer an inspiring and transformative six-week online memoir writing class beginning October 5th. Claire is not only a bestselling author, but she is a licensed therapist specializing in grief. If you don’t know her books or her work, this class is a great way to learn more and jump start your own writing. We wanted to bring what we know about writing personal stories to anyone who may want to share their own story for publication or who just want to capture memories for family and friends.
The process of writing From Scratch has been one of the most healing aspects of my grief journey. So many of you have shared with me similar stories of loss, and how reading my story has helped you to better understand your own experiences. Below I answer a few frequent questions about how writing has helped me navigate through my grief, and I hope will help you as well.
Spots are filling quickly – We hope you’ll join us.
How did the process of writing From Scratch impact your journey with grief?
Writing a memoir required that I look back at the totality of my experiences, both harrowing and joyful, and make sense of my lived experiences. Since the book is very much about my early journey of grief, I had to investigate what had inspired me and what had challenged me in the first three years of loss. Writing the book made me have to stand in the truth of my deep vulnerability and my surprising resilience. It made me respect my grief process even more.
Did you journal before you started writing your memoir? How did that serve you early in your loss?
I have always journaled. Case in point, I still have a journal from the summer when I was fourteen and living in Washington, D.C. Writing was my way to explore, then and now. And while I have never been a daily journal-writer, I did turn to daily journaling in the early months of my life after loss. Writing was my way to stay connected and in conversation with someone I loved. Plus, having a bedside ritual and a place to capture and contain all the unexpressed feelings I was having proved comforting. Later, those journals were instrumental when I started to write From Scratch.
Do you continue to write about grief and does it continue to be a healing tool for you? How so years later?
I still write about loss – in all its forms. I think, consciously or unconsciously, it is infused in each experience I bring to the page. Whether that grief be my own or the grief of another or even a society. Because grief is, at its core, an expression of love. And I think we are all writing about love in some way or another.
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