Writing Resilience is a peer-led, four-week Zoom workshop for writers or aspiring writers who are affected by trauma, addiction, and/or mental illness. As with the #metoo movement and 12-step sharing, we find that writing and owning our stories is empowering and may increase coping and resilience.
Participants have called the workshop “life-changing,” “useful and motivating” and “generated a lot of good work.” Please see testimonials below.
In the first session, participants introduce themselves with a five-minute reading of their work (preferably autobiographical). We introduce the homework and we write in class on prompts. Daily homework consists of writing morning pages (three longhand stream of consciousness pages) and saying positive affirmations. Writers who have current projects are instructed to devote five minutes each day on them. Weekly homework is a prompted assignment. A weekly assignment may be “Write a timeline of your dysfunction” or “Write about a victory.”
In subsequent sessions, we share our writing and participants get feedback from me and the classes. We also write on prompts in class. We write about our mothers and fathers, write list poems that begin “I remember . . .” and "I am afraid . . . .” Participants may write prose or poetry or hybrid work. At the end, participants may have the beginnings of a memoir.
I began Writing Resilience because of my own recovery through writing. I am a person with bipolar and borderline personality disorders and creative writing dramatically reduced my symptoms of depression and instability. Writing and participating in writing communities gives my life meaning and joy; in Writing Resilience, I share what I have experienced with others.
For more information, including a schedule of upcoming classes, or to discuss private lessons, please contact me at larissa@larissashmailo.com
“Larissa Shmailo's Writing Resilience Workshop helped me to write again after a period of writer's block. In the past I have not been able to write in response to prompts, or to write in-workshop, but something about Larissa's leadership and compassion—along with the warmth of the group—freed me to participate. I am grateful for the experience and highly recommend the workshop."
—Rachel Blum, author of The Doctor of Flowers
“Larissa Shmailo is a true warrior of the written/spoken word, as her life and work ignites her. What an honor to be one of her students! Her class is generative and I produced some pieces that were published quickly. We did in-class exercises and read our work aloud. Got excellent feedback from her, as well as the other students. If you get a chance to take Shmailo’s class, jump on it. She is a gift to the writing community. WOW!”
—Meg Tuite, author of five short story collections, two poetry collections, and published in numerous literary magazines, as well as anthologies.
“This course created the space and structure in my life to make writing a regular part of my day. Larissa’s excellent exercises and insightful feedback served as the basis for rich class discussions and workshops. I felt connected to my classmates and found myself feeling at home among them—a rare treasure for such a compact time frame and over Zoom. I would highly recommend this course to any writer who wants to get back on track but is struggling to enact this desire day to day.”
—Anna Fridlis, writing instructor, Parsons School of Design
“Larissa Shmailo is astute, discerning, and perceptive . . . Larissa brings to the workshop the rare capacity of true interest in the work and the lives of her students. She affirms the writing in a way that demonstrates understanding of the content, through specificity and authentic reaction to the piece. This class allows the processing of personal trauma while also freeing it in the direction of publication. One is left realizing that the world does want to hear your story.”
—Sandra Kleven, publisher, Cirque
