Workshop participants work on their two page assignment.
Kay Grask
Soon, and for eight weeks, the Guided Autobiography Workshop will be beginning at the newly renovated Conference Center at Quail Creek on Wednesday mornings, October 21 through December 16 (skipping November 25 because of Thanksgiving), 9:30 to 11:30 a.m.
This workshop provides an opportunity for all who are interested in writing, for self and family and others, our unique life stories. If we do not save them for posterity, probably no one will know them; we will not have voiced them and they will be lost forever. Each of us has specialized, personal stories in our memories that we can place on paper, share now and leave for the future. The process is especially beneficial when we enter a new phase of our lives, like retirement.
Each eight times we meet, included will be instruction on writing our stories on a special theme, some tools and perspectives to help inspire our writings and, importantly, time to meet in your small group to share your writing and listen to others read theirs to you. Each week we will be asked to write two pages on a significant theme of our storied life. We will receive priming questions to help us write our story on the theme; definitely writing skills are not required. What’s important is to bring our stories—our “his-story.”
One Quail Creek participant enumerated specific helps she received from the Guided Autobiography Workshop:
”The two page homework assignment—quite manageable, yet calling for additions later—the handout of sensitizing questions to expand our memories on the theme, attention to privacy issues, flexibility about what we chose to do and how we did it, our instructor’s ability to create a friendly atmosphere, making the group’s warm-up discussions more useful, psychologically sound information provided to help frame and inspire our thinking, exercises to increase memories and help create new connections in our thinking about our lives, feeling heard and appreciated, relearning (in this workshop) that others are very interesting and wonderful when you get to know them on a deeper level than chatting and marveling at the common issues within the variety. In other words, bolstering our sense of community in humanness.” Martha
Enrollment started September 24, 2015, and is limited. To indicate your interest, please call Kay Grask, LCSW, Certified Guided Autobiography Instructor, at 574-292-6553. Registration will take place before the first session.
“A man’s experiences of life are a book. There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy and a tragedy.” Mark Twain