Writing to Heal: Exploring Trauma and Truth on the Page

Sometimes our stories feel too complex, too painful, or too raw to put into words—but writing can offer us a powerful path toward clarity, reflection, and healing.

In this course, you’ll develop tools to help heal trauma through writing. Together, we’ll explore personal storytelling as a means of making sense of difficult experiences, and finding the seeds of meaning and connection within them.

We’ll help you develop sustainable writing habits, while discovering why and how writing frees up cognitive resources that can lead to healing. We’ll cultivate a safe and supportive space to explore vulnerable topics, and to thoughtfully consider whether you want to develop your stories for personal reflection or to be shared with others.

Through weekly craft lessons, guided writing exercises, and readings from inspiring memoirs and personal essays, you’ll learn how to shape your memories into meaningful, authentic narratives. You’ll receive weekly feedback from me and your peers, plus the option for two one-on-one “coffee chats” with me for personalized guidance.

By the end of the course, you’ll have tools to process difficult experiences through writing that shines with honesty, care, and confidence—whether just for yourself or for future readers.

Who This Course Is For

This class is perfect for writers who have complicated stories, and would like to figure out the best way to write them. You may be unsure whether your writing is meant for publication or for your own healing, or you may find that fear, doubt, or fragmented memories are holding you back from writing. With guidance and support, we’ll explore all of this together. All experience levels are welcome!

Learning and Writing Goals

 Learning Goals

In this course, you will learn:

• Why and how writing can free up cognitive resources and heals trauma.
• How to write about friends and family. 
• To write about trauma without retraumatizing yourself.
• To live like a writer, creating schedules, setting boundaries.
• Journaling: Why it’s important to keep something for yourself.
• The foundations of personal essay and memoir writing, if you decide to share your writing.
• Tools of emotional resilience needed for publishing your stories. 

Writing Goals

• Write and submit up to 1000 words per week
• Write and share the story you never thought you could.

Zoom Schedule

We will meet as a group every Wednesday from 8-10 PM Eastern. I will also be available for two 15-minute one-on-one “Coffee Chats” (by appointment) from 8-11 PM Eastern.

Weekly Syllabus

We will cover a lot of ground over the next eight weeks, but I’ll break up the course into easy-to-digest lessons that should take 30-60 minutes each week to complete. I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed, I want you to get what you came for and a little extra. Trust me, we’re going to take it slow, and I’ll be guiding you the entire way. 

What you get out of this course depends entirely on how much work you put into it. There will be writing prompts, readings, writing assignments, course chats, and discussions. I highly recommend that you participate as often as you can.

Week One: Finding Your Story 

In this first class, I’ll ask you to come prepared with a piece of writing to share (no more than 1000 words).   We’ll discuss what makes for a great personal essay and/or memoir (as opposed to articles or autobiography) and zero in on what type of writing you’re going to do. The workshopping portions of our class will require active reading and listening to provide helpful feedback.  We will discuss how to participate so that everyone gets thoughtful responses to their work.

Week Two: How Writing Can Heal Trauma

We’ll discuss how and why certain kinds of guided, detailed writing can not only help us process what we’ve been through and assist us as we envision a path forward; it can also lower our blood pressure, strengthen our immune systems, and increase our general well-being. We’ll also discuss how expressive writing can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, improve our sleep and performance, and bring us greater focus and clarity.

Week Three: Dealing with Family,  What to Leave In, What to Leave Out

Sometimes, to tell your story, you need to tell someone else’s, too—kids, parents, friends, bosses, co-workers, spouses, and even ex-spouses. During our third week together, we’ll learn to evaluate everything this way: “Does it serve the story?” We’ll also discuss various strategies, such as using italics for the inner voice and changing names, descriptions, and locations. 

Week Four: Writing About Trauma Without Retraumatizing Yourself

Trauma memory often comes in flashes and fragments. During this week, I’ll share my experience with writing about my own trauma, along with suggestions and tips from several of my (best-selling) author friends who all tackled writing about trauma in different ways. We’ll also talk about comfort vs self-care and how to best take care of yourself during these vulnerable writing sessions. 

Week Five: Journaling to Find the “WHY” of Your Writing

It is possible to write every day, and journaling is the best way to accomplish this. Keep a notebook in the car so you can journal while waiting for your take-out order or for a soccer game to end. When can you not scroll and commit to writing instead? It can be ten minutes, or it can be two hours. All the best authors have writing strategies. This week, I’ll help you discover the “why” of your writing.  Is it just for you, or is it something you need to share with the world?

Week Six: Personal Essays

During this class, we’ll go over different writing structures and methods to help you organize your essay. We’ll also talk about the importance of voice and how yours can set your writing apart. We’ll brainstorm ideas that would make a great essay, and finally, I’ll go over essay structure and pitching.

Week Seven: Memoir

In this class, we’ll go over memoir structure and genres. When editing the manuscript for querying, it’s good to have a tight ten (pages) to submit to the agent.  If they like what they read, they may request the full manuscript! Looking for an agent is like looking for a spouse. You want to make sure it’s a good fit. In our final class, we’ll discuss strategies for finding an agent that makes sense for you and your memoir..

Week Eight: Letting Your Story “Out”

Writing about your real life isn’t always the battle. Once it’s published, you’ll want to brace yourself for the real fight because people you don’t know will often have an opinion about your truth.  All writers have blind spots, no matter how long they’ve been writing. Our stories have deficits, holes in the narrative, better ways of phrasing ideas, and confusing sections that will trip up our readers.  A bad review can be crippling. It’s all part of the process. We’ll discuss how to let go of the negative and focus on the positive, which is the real art.

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$545.00 Original price was: $545.00.$465.00Current price is: $465.00.Enroll Now