Things are kicking into high gear. I’ll be offering four more 2-hour workshops (May 4 Fiction Essentials is full!). Follow the links beneath each description to register. Two are online, two are in-person (the Fiction Essentials workshop on June 9 is for congregants of the First Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hunterdon County, where I’m a member).

“Storytelling is healing. As we reveal ourselves in story, we become aware of the continuing core of our lives under the fragmented surface of our experience. We become aware of the multifaceted, multi-chaptered ‘I’ who is the storyteller. We can trace out the paradoxical and even contradictory versions of ourselves that we create for different occasions, different audiences… Most important, as we become aware of ourselves as storytellers, we realized that what we understand and imagine about ourselves is a story. And when we know all this, we can use our stories to heal and make ourselves whole.”

—Susan Wittig Albert, Writing From Life

I’ve been friends with Steve Dolainski for over a decade. We co-edited and published Outer Voices, Inner Lives: LGBTQ Writers Over 50, an anthology that became a Lambda Literary Award finalist in 2014. I finally met Steve in person a year ago when we were visiting my sister in Ojai, California, and he told me about recently becoming a certified Guided Autobiography instructor. I was hooked by the description and what Guided Autobiography has to offer, and earlier this year I took the instructor’s training to became certified myself.

Enjoy this 15-minute interview recorded yesterday. It will be part of my weekly co-hosted Twist Podcast, but it stands alone very well.

GAB Gazette Features Guided Autobiography Instructor Steve Dolainski

Featured Guided Autobiography instructor Steve Dolainski, who introduced me to GAB. My own workshops and courses start this spring.

https://birrencenter.substack.com/p/featured-gabber-stephen-dolainski?utm_medium=email

“Stephen Dolainski was drawn to GAB after learning about it through friends in Oregon in 2022.

“I did some research on GAB and, as a long-time adult educator and writer/editor, I was intrigued with the concept and the methodology. I immediately knew that GAB was something for me to explore,” he said.

After taking the the training in November 2022, he wanted to work with LGBTQ seniors.

“When I received certification, I contacted the Los Angeles LGBT Center and proposed forming a GAB class,” he said. “In 2023, we offered three GAB 1 classes and one GAB 2 class. More classes will be offered in 2024.”

Stephen loves teaching GAB and talks about how it how much it benefits writers by sharing their truth.”

CONTINUE READING

Ready, set … write! I’ve got two 2-hour Guided Autobiography workshops coming up in May, one in-person and one online.

I personally love doing book events, especially the Q & A portion where I engage with the audience. Have you wondered what some basic tips are for giving a good reading? Check out this slideshow with helpful suggestions from the Mystery Writers of America-New York chapter. (I’m on the board, fyi.) See you at the next book event!

I’ve been a fan of Jean Ryan’s superb writing for quite a few years now, and what could be more exciting than a new collection of her poetry? I ordered this the instant I knew it was available. Jean is a writer’s writer, whether it’s short stories, novels, astonishing nature essays, or poetry. And she’s an excellent painter, too! Poetry is the foundation of so much of what we call good writing, and Jean delivers. I’ve been devouring her poems one by one, and now they’re available in a single volume. Buy it here.

About ‘A Day Like This’

In the title poem of Jean Ryan’s luminous new collection, her speaker sees swallows slicing the air, observing, “Short dark arrows, they never miss, their flight too swift for error.” I can’t think of a more apt description for A Day Like This, in which poem after poem so vividly penetrates to the core of lived experience. Ryan’s poems have an ease of movement and transparency of structure I find most enviable. She has a special gift for finding what remains fresh and particular inside the ancient stuff of poetry. This is a gorgeous book, powerful and assured, written by a poet who is elegant, concise, honest, and warm-hearted in her approach. I can’t recommend it enough. A quietly masterful work.

—Erin Belieu, author of the poetry collections Come-Hither Honeycomb, Black Box, Slant Six, and One Above and One Below