“All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.”
~ Isak Dinesen
Writing can have many powerful benefits, particularly in the face of these life challenges. Writing can help us process emotions and experiences. It can help us find clarity and perspective, alleviate stress and know ourselves better. Sharing our writing with others can make the burdens we each carry seem lighter and help us feel more connected. And making art out of difficulty can feel transformative.
AWA’s Power of Story initiative offers all these benefits and more. Each Power of Story workshop is aimed at a group of individuals who share similar challenges, (including caregivers, teachers, bereaved family members, and people living with chronic illness and invisible disability, to name a few–and the variety of our programs is steadily growing).
Power of Story sessions are writing workshops, held in the AWA method, where participants write together, read aloud from their new work, listen to others and provide and receive strength-based feedback on how their writing communicates and moves others. This simple formula is a powerful tool for reducing stress and feeling better. Participants often arrive as strangers but quickly become a deeply connected community.
You’ll find links to Power of Story workshops geared to a variety of communities below, as well as a list of upcoming events.
Power of Story Writing Workshops are open to everyone. You don’t have to define yourself a writer to join or enjoy the experience.
The workshops are led by facilitators trained in the AWA Method and take place on Zoom. They last about two hours. The first hour is devoted to writing. You can write whatever you want or let the prompts offered inspire you. The second hour is devoted to feedback. You can choose to read aloud from what you’ve just written or not. If you choose to share, you will receive positive, affirmative feedback from the small group. You’ll also have the opportunity to hear what the other group members have written to share with them the impact that the words have had on you.
Meditations in support of POS & YOU
Quiet spaces when something is pressing on your heart – inspiration to write when there’s no available workshop.
The Caregiver Project Writing Workshops
The Art of Loss: Writing through Grief
What Time Has Given: Writing through Aging
This writing workshop invites women to write into the tender, complicated territory of aging—not as a problem to solve, but as a landscape to enter.
Words for the Invisible
Words for the Invisible is an online writing workshop in the AWA method for those who are living with Chronic Illness and/or Invisible Disability.
Holiday Survival Writing
Teachers Flourishing Through Writing