Survivors’ Voices Writing Workshops

Giving survivors back their stories, in their own words.

Join us to write together in a community of belonging. Write Where We Belong Survivors’ Voices Workshops offer a safe space where survivors of sexual violence and predatory events can come together to explore what it is they have to say.

The workshops are facilitated in the AWA method by trained AWA Affiliates. Facilitators offer generative prompts, and participants have the opportunity to write together in community, to read and listen to each other’s writing, and share strengths-based feedback.

First started in 2022, these workshops are held several times each month. The workshops have demonstrated the ways in which our stories can create a sense of belonging, help us discover our voices, and bear witness to each other. Writing in community with other survivors has brought participants hope and a sense of belonging, revealing that we are not defined by our trauma, but can choose how to incorporate and give meaning to our life experiences.

There is a significant body of literature demonstrating that individuals are capable of profound change through the creative power of the self. Research by James Pennebaker and others suggests that expressive writing can play a meaningful role in healing trauma by enabling survivors to make sense of their experiences. Language is a powerful tool that conveys emotion, carries moral import, and can create a sense of belonging or community feeling. As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk notes in his seminal work The Body Keeps the Score, “Language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning” (van der Kolk, 2014).

Register here for the Write Around the World SURVIVORS VOICES on Feb. 17 

Recent research has shown that survivors engaging with art or storytelling report a 38% increase in clarity about their trauma. Additional information is available at https://writewherewebelong.ca/

For more information or to register contact Mary Simmerling at writewherewebelong.ca@gmail.com

 

 

Writing from the workshops has been included in two anthologies published by Amherst Writers & Artists PressWe’ve Been Put Through Fire & Come Out Divine: Stories of Hope & Survival and We’ve Got Some Things to Say: Reshaping Narratives Around Sexual Violence – demonstrating that our stories shape our perceptions and have the power to change history, both preventing future trauma and reclaiming past experiences.

Click the “Interrogation” link above to see the performance video of one poem from the launch of the anthology of survivor’s voices, We’ve Got Some Things To Say.