Healing through Memoir and Collage

Title of Course: Healing through Memoir and Collage

Facilitator: Becca Reilly

Email: lumenhour@gmail.com Phone: 651-230-4675

Class Time: 4-7 pm, except on Fridays we'll finish a bit earlier

Class Dates: Tuesday June 16th -Multipurpose room, from 4-7
Friday June 19th -craft room from 4-5
Tuesday June 23rd - Game room, from 4-7
Friday June 26th -craft room, from 4-5

Place: Matthews Park Community Center.

Course description:

We’ll work on autobiographical arts in a group workshop setting. People who want to heal themselves from trauma or illness can try healing by getting in touch with their inner stories. This is a short workshop series on nonfiction writing and then assembling collages that connect the specifics of memory with physical and emotional feelings. Professor James Pennebaker’s research has shown that this effects healing in patients, when typical diary-writing does not. In his book, Opening Up: the Healing Power of Expressing Emotions, research shows that it’s never too late for someone to heal emotional wounds, which in turn helps people heal physically.

First meeting: reading the research, some memoirs, and writing the inner story

Second meeting: writing exercises, exploring memoirs

Third meeting: seeing arts that heal, discussion on collage, collage for inner story

Fourth meeting: Collage exercises, writing in response to collages
**Join class and I'll send you a better syllabus**

Class size: Minimum 2 Maximum 10

What experience do you bring to this class?

I learned from Mary Carroll Moore about the psychosomatic healing effects of writing one’s inner story, in her Loft class, “Writing through Healing.” My class takes a more interactive, artistic approach to the concept of an inner life story that heals. I have lots of experience as a visual artist, poet, blogger, script writer and diarist, and I’ve enjoyed group critiques in writing workshops both at Augsburg College and the Loft Literary Center through the last 3 years.