Literary Cleveland · Lightening the Load: Making Trauma Bearable for the Reader and Writer

Lightening the Load: Making Trauma Bearable for the Reader and Writer

Many memoirs are paths out from darkness, but let’s be honest—the darkness can get a little heavy at times. Readers crave a chance to catch their breath before immersing themselves back into the depths of despair. How do we add these moments of lightness to our work? We will discuss several techniques to lighten the load and then focus on the flip side: how do we write about trauma without re-traumatizing ourselves?

Instructors

Lara Lillibridge (she/zher) is the author of "The Truth About Unringing Phones: Essays on Yearning" (forthcoming with Unsolicited Press); "Mama, Mama, Only Mama: An Irreverent Guide for the Newly Single Parent," and "Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home," both with Skyhorse Publishing. Lillibridge co-edited an anthology with Andréa Fekete entitled "Feminine Rising: Voices of Power and Invisibility" (Cynren Press), winner of the 2019 Foreword Reviews Indies Silver Award in Women's Studies. She holds an MFA from West Virginia Wesleyan College. Lara is the Interviews Editor for Hippocampus Magazine and Creative Nonfiction Co-editor for HeartWood Literary Magazine. Lillibridge judged AWP's 2019 Intro Journals Award, and was Hippocampus Magazine’s 2019 Literary Citizen of the Year. In 2016 Lara won Slippery Elm Literary Journal’s Prose Contest, and The American Literary Review's Contest in Nonfiction.

Details
Lightening the Load: Making Trauma Bearable for the Reader and Writer with Lara Lillibridge takes place Thursday, May 12 from 7-9pm remotely online via Zoom.

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