LitFest in the Dena Presents “Writing Trauma”

Featuring:

Rhonda Mitchell

Cassandra Lane

Shonda Buchanan

Panel Discussion and Reading – Writing Trauma

Trauma can make storytelling elusive. Memory is often an unreliable witness, fragmented and fragile, what we remember and how we remember can make the material difficult to approach at best, or slippery and fallible, and unable to grasp at worst. How do you talk about the material? How do we write and re-imagine trauma when people are still living, or you still have to navigate the spaces where it happened? Sometimes writing in alternative forms can help to excavate this material. Panelists will discuss how writing trauma through a variety of genres can make the material malleable. Most importantly, self-care while writing is essential. Panelists will explore: · What is to be gained from writing and reading about trauma? · Besides writing about your experience, what is the universal experience you as the writer would like to surface? · Is writing trauma healing or cathartic? · What is re-traumatization or PTSD? ·

Authors will explore different areas of trauma we write about such as:  Writing the trauma of mother-daughter and mother-son relationships or Writing about addiction, our own or witnessing active addiction with a loved one or Sexual assault or domestic violence or Childhood and community trauma or Trauma, violence inflicted by law enforcement or Generational or historical trauma. We will also consider what books have been influential and helpful in terms of exploring and understanding these themes. How has reading other work provided connection and how has our work offered this possibility to readers?

Event held in the Cloister Gardens, Mountain View Mausoleum