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Welcome to the Woven Dialog Workshop Website. At this site, you can learn more about more about the Woven Dialog Workshops, unique writing workshops designed to facilitate the healing process. In the Woven Dialog Workshop, illness is considered a crisis which offers both danger and opportunity for growth. Here, the writer is empowered to discover her authentic voice and the dignity of his experience. Since 2001, cancer patients, nurses and caregivers have met at the Loran Smith Center for Cancer Support in Athens, Georgia. Groups meet for three consecutive eight week sessions. What follows are their words:
Yesterday you commented on the progress our little group has made in our writing. I’m sure that that has been true for me, and I was thinking about why that was happening. When we first started, it was like floodgates opening, and stuff was rushing out and it was all I could do to get it on paper. Now when I write, I’m thinking of the faces of the people I will be reading to. I’m working on creating word pictures and shaping, yes, crafting, the language to create an effect. At the same time, I’m allowing the feelings I have to find their voice. This whole process has been exhilarating for me. Having feedback on our individual writings/readings. This awakened aspects in my words that I was not aware of through others’ perceptions of what I had written. The intimacy of this small group and trust enabled us to give and take. I did not know how difficult it would be for me to go inside and pull out “stuff”; I didn’t realize how helpful that could be. I am struck by the courage and the openness of the people in the group. We were all struggling to find our voices and we were supported in that. And reading aloud—wow! That was powerful. We all loved listening to each other. I feel my doors are opening more and more as a consequence of the workshop. Sometimes the screen door is closed but a strong gust of creative wind usually blows it open again. I am sure my writing has become a lifelong companion and friend. Woven Dialog Workshops are currently held at the Loran Smith Center for Cancer Support in Athens, Georgia; see Schedule of classes
NEWS Sara will be presenting a workshop at the 2009 Wellness and Writing Connections Conference in Atlanta on October 24 entitled, "The Landscape of Illness." The journal Traumatology, has accepted Sara's paper, "Tell It Slant" for a special issue. Please take a look at Sara's new blog, Word Medicine, www.saratbaker.wordpress.com Sara and Grey will be presenting their workshop at the April '09 National Association for Poetry Therapy in Washington, D.C. Sara will be presenting a workshop and paper at the October 10-11 Wellness and Writing conference in Atlanta. Go to http://www.wellnessandwritingconnections.com. Her presentation, "Tell It Slant: History, Memory and Imagination in the Healing Writing Workshop," will be included in a volume of conference proceedings from Idol Arbor Press. Sara and Grey Brown, Literary Arts Director Health Arts Network at Duke Arts and Humanities, will present a workshop on preventing re-traumatization in the writing workshop at the April Society for the Arts in Healthcare International Conference. The Journal of Poetry Therapy has accepted three of Sara's poems for publication in its Volume 21, number 3 Edition, due out September of '08. An essay entitled "Tools for the Writing Workshop: Listening and Observing" will be included in the book The Art of Grief: Uses of Expressive Arts in Grief Support Groups, edited by Dr. Earl Rogers and published by Routledge. The estimated publishing date is spring 2007. Sara's poem "Bear" was published in the Winter 2006 edition of Ars Medica, a biannual literary journal of medicine, the arts and humanities. http://ars-medica.ca "Catechism," was published in the Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine, http://yjhm.yale.edu/. "Refrigerator," a poem, was published in October 2007 issue of The Healing Muse, the literary and visual journal of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University, www.thehealingmuse.org "Thoughts on the Process" can be found at www.saratbaker.com/blog/index.html Please join the conversation!
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak, Whispers the o'erfrought heart and bids it break. --Shakespeare
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