Writing Our Grief: How to Channel Loss into Creative Expression

Sometimes dealing with grief on our own can feel like we’re alone. Writing about loss, death, sadness, and grief can feel intimidating because we’re excavating our deepest vulnerabilities, and this means confronting buried emotions. It might be difficult to process the wide range of emotions that accompany loss—everything from sadness to anger to relief. However, finding a place to allow these feelings to land can be liberating—not only for one’s writing, but also cathartic personally.

In this personal essay course, we will learn how to tell the stories that impact us the most through creative writing about grief, pain, and loss. The objective of this course is to mine our feelings of loss and try to capture them onto the page. This course will give participants the permission and tools to become more comfortable about writing death and loss. Through the course of eight weeks, we will read other writers and their essays on the subject of loss, death, and grief, and delve into the stories that individual participants would like to explore.

Students will receive feedback on short writing exercises based on prompts, as well as the chance to workshop an essay with the instructor during the class. Participants will leave this class learning how to tackle death, loss, grief in the space of a personal essay. Students will learn how to make the personal universal. There will be also class discussion on the materials. Students will receive extensive feedback on two essays during the 8-week period.

Weekly Zoom Meeting Schedule

The course’s weekly Zoom meetings will take place on Wednesdays at 7 PM Eastern time. Meetings will be one hour to 90 minutes in length.

Creative Writing About Grief: Course Syllabus

Week 1: Welcome and Introductions/Why write nonfiction essays stemming from loss or tragedy?

How do past journal or diary entries help you excavate the grief you’d like to write about in your essay? Work on in-class writing prompt on three pivotal moments that seem compelling for you to excavate in an essay.

Week 2: Different ways to brainstorm our grief to write our best essays.

Writing about grief is often difficult and sometimes it takes work to pen our most difficult feelings. In this session, students will learn techniques re: brainstorming on their essay topic. It will include information on mind mapping, traditional outline structure, and using photographs to generate story ideas.

Week 3: How to begin the grief essay?

Knowing where to start the grief essay is important. We will look at various essays and how they begin. How do we engage the reader with the very first sentence of our grief essay?

Week 4: Navigating the middle of our grief essay and the narrative arc.

For an essay to feel genuine to the reader and the writer, the narrative arc has to hit the right points. We will work through the middle of our essays to excavate the tension sometimes the middle poses when writing about grief.

Week 5: Giving ourselves room to breathe when writing grief essays.

Sometimes creative writing about grief raises difficult emotions/feelings. What to do when we feel stuck? How to forge forward as we navigate our emotions and confront sadness and truth in our writing. We will cover strategies on how to handle this grief in a way that will channel our best essay writing and focus on healing too.   

Week 6: Looking at endings in our essays.

Grief is something that doesn’t end and how do we capture that sentiment in our essays? This is tricky terrain, especially as we are trying to navigate our feelings in our endings even though the grief lingers outside the page.  

Week 7: Putting it all together.

How does they essay come across in terms of prose and lyricism? We will look at how the essay is elevated through metaphors and the use of craft.

Week 8: Looking at markets and the feeling after publication of our grief essays.

We will talk publication and markets and whether you’re in the right mental place to publish your essays. How do we navigate the questions that come after readers read our vulnerable pieces on grief?

Why Take a Creative Writing Course with Writers.com?

• We welcome writers of all backgrounds and experience levels, and we are here for one reason: to support you on your writing journey.
• Small groups keep our online writing classes lively and intimate.
• Work through your weekly written lectures, course materials, and writing assignments at your own pace.
• Share and discuss your work with classmates in a supportive class environment.
• Award-winning instructor Rudri Patel will offer you direct, personal feedback and suggestions on every assignment you submit.

Student Feedback for Instructor Rudri Patel

Rudri is genuine and compassionate, sharing her stories and helping students find a way to hold their grief, and release some of its anchors. I highly suggest Writing Our Grief, so much so, I’m gifting it to a friend. Don’t hesitate. Take this class! Linda Ragsdale

Rudri has a way of fostering discussion and motivating her students to produce more and better work. By the end of the first week alone, I’d completely revised my daily writing strategy, reduced procrastination, and felt better equipped to achieve some pretty ambitious writing goals. I’m confident that 2021 will be my best writing year to-date. Jessica Fiorillo

This workshop was everything I wanted and more!  Not only is Rudri an excellent instructor and writer, but she is a wonderful human being. Rudri provided a safe place for everyone to freely express themselves, giving 200% of herself and modeling for students her courage and vulnerability. Cynthia Bassett

This class, and Rudri’s compassion and ability to create a safe space, helped me work through levels of grief that I didn’t realize I still had. I made connections between past and present losses that I hadn’t made before, which has helped me to grieve at a deeper level. My writing has benefited from the exercises and Rudri’s encouragement to write my truth. This was an excellent class, and I hope to work with Rudri again in the future. Andi Reed

I learned so much in Rudri's class, not just about bullet journaling but about setting goals and establishing habits that nurture and sustain the writing life. Rudri created a welcoming space to discuss not just the ins and outs of bullet journaling, but also how to build habits that nurture creativity and self-care. I highly recommend it for writers and everyone! Daisy Florin

Rudri Bhatt Patel has been a mentor, coach, and editor for my writing projects for almost ten years. Under the skillful guidance of her expertise, candor, and gentle spirit, I have made great gains in refining and expanding my short stories to publication as well as completing a novel. In addition, as co-members of a critique group for several years, Rudri consistently offered in depth and valuable feedback to me and others on a biweekly basis. Her comprehensive written feedback was always delivered with a sensitivity and respect for each person’s creative expression, while authentically providing insight into strengths and areas that needed development. Trish Dolansinski

I recommend Rudri Bhatt Patel without reservation. She is knowledgeable, articulate and experienced in all things writing and publishing. Her kindness as well as her professionalism and expertise make working with her a delight. Susan Pohlman

Rudri's knowledge and skills related to professional writing have also helped me with my own writing career many times in the past. Julie Vick

Over the past ten years I have had numerous opportunities to interact with Rudri Batt Patel during writing classes, book critiques, and writer networking sessions. She has a profound ability to engage as a learner, presenter, and facilitator. Her own writing skills are exceptional and her variety of published works enable her to assist developing writers in multiple ways. Phyllis Schwartz

Rudri Patel is an organized and seasoned presenter with years of writing and publishing experience. I’ve been lucky enough to have Rudri in my critique circle for over a decade and I’m a stronger writer because of it. Windy Lynn Harris

Rudri has a wonderful way of bringing out the best in her colleagues without criticism - a skill I appreciate as a veteran of the classroom myself. Jenn Morson