The power of writing together

By Faye Powell
The Portland Upside
March 2010

Photo by Faye Powell

Emily Trinkaus (left), founder of Portland Women Writers and Dawn Thompson, offer a safe and inviting space where women can find and develop their authentic voices through writing.

How many beautiful stories languish in the hearts and minds of women who fear exposing their vulnerable words to others? How many critical teachers silence the nascent creativity of students, convinced they cannot write?

One mild January morning I join nine other women in a half-day Portland Women Writers (PWW) workshop at the Multnomah Village Garden Sanctuary located in a quiet southwest Portland neighborhood. We gather in a large room in which grey light streams through tall, wide windows. Buddhist paintings and statuettes on walls and windowsills create an ambiance of serenity as we sit in a circle with notebooks and pens poised. The theme is “Chiron: The Wounded Healer.”

After we introduce ourselves, Emily Trinkaus, founder of PWW and Dawn Thompson, a workshop facilitator, explain that this workshop, like all PWW workshops, will operate on the premise that everyone is a writer, that everyone can access her own voice through the written word and that each of our voices is unique and brilliant.

In order to encourage us to go within and mine the jewels in our own stories, the facilitators suggest free-write prompts, such as “I am reconnecting …,” “My gifts are …,” and “I am healing ….” Then they invite us to share what we have written.

Trained in the Amherst Writers and Artists community writing method, Emily moved to Portland from New York in 2001. She found there wasn’t a similar writing group here and she missed it, so in 2003 she established PWW which now offers a variety of workshops in which women writers of every level come together to write in a safe, supportive environment.

“When you get used to writing in groups and you go home and try to write by yourself, it’s harder,” Emily says.

PWW’s primary goal is to create writing communities that promote healing and personal transformation, with less emphasis on publication. In our busy society, it is easy to feel isolated, and one of the positive benefits of PWW is that it brings Portland-area women together who otherwise would never meet.

For Dawn, a former staff member with Write Around Portland, writing stories is a sacred healing and transformative act.

“Anytime we have the opportunity to pause from our busy lives and to redirect our attention back inward,” she says, “that sets a groundwork for really amazing things to take place. Writing allows us to share our story with ourselves and with others, and I think there is something inherently healing about that … and to do it in our own voice.”

Dawn continues, “I think there is something special that happens when a group of women come together. I think part of it has to do with the safety that’s created for women … that the safety and ease allow women to take perhaps more risks with their writing. It is a place where women really get to practice being themselves and find their unique voice.”

Emily adds that by exploring one’s wounds in a supportive group, women see they are not alone and that through the compassionate support of others in the group, self-acceptance can grow. She uses astrology—“a language of archetypes”—in her workshops because she views it as a way of observing oneself more objectively, both as a unique individual and also connected with something larger.

A couple of weeks later I am sitting in on one of Rhea Wolf’s weekly PWW workshops. Rhea, like Dawn, is a former Write Around Portland facilitator. On this evening seven women gather in the cozy living room of the host’s Sellwood home. Over a period of two hours, Rhea leads us through four free-writes and readings.

When women write together there is a lot of laughter. Listening to one another, heads nod, “Yes! We’ve been there too.” Rhea notes that in an eight-week workshop, women have time to create a safe, secure space where familiarity and trust can develop and where each person’s authentic voice can flourish and be heard.

Facilitators and participants alike are unanimous in their enthusiasm for writing in community.
Jenni Miller began writing with PWW about a year-and-a-half ago.

She says, “Having spent time working on a few plays and some short stories, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it all. PWW offers a tremendously supportive environment, believes in the process of writing, in each individual’s process, and facilitates sound solid feedback. Since that first class almost two years ago, I now have numerous pieces I am confidently working on… short stories, poems …who would have ever thought!”

Dawn and Emily both stress the transformative power of sharing one’s stories in a group of women.

“In a group of eight,” Dawn points out, “it is common for two or three to be new writers. Therefore, the workshop is a perfect container for [starting to write] because we honor where anyone is in their own writing process. We all have a voice, and we all have words.”

Another participant, Sara Hamill, says she appreciates that only positive feedback is permitted because a free-write is like “an infant child being presented to a group. One can request a critique of more mature writing later if one wishes. The only risk is showing up.”
Traci Schatz describes the retreats and workshops as “life changing experiences.”

“When I took my first PWW workshop,” she says, “I hoped to get a chance to meet other women writers and carve out some dedicated time for my own writing. What I didn’t expect was to be so influenced and moved by the writing the other women shared.”

PWW offers workshops on a variety of themes including nature, poetry, astrology, sacred story, and embracing change. To accommodate different schedules and interests, there are one-day, three-day and weekly workshops. For writers who want to focus on the craft of writing, a sister organization, Portland Writers, offers workshops for both experienced and beginning writers. In the spring, PWW will offer a three-day retreat at Silver Falls on the theme, “Freeing the Wild Feminine.”

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For more information about Portland Women Writers, Portland Writers and the Amherst Writers and Artists see pdxwomenwriters.com, portlandwriters.com and
amherstwriters.com

Faye Powell is a retired librarian who writes fiction and non-fiction. She can be contacted at phaysee1@gmail.com