The HerStories Project

Check out the press release from February 2, 2010! The full program for HerStories is provided.

The RCAH Center for Poetry is a HerStories partner! From its base in the Residential College of Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University, the Center is co-promoting HerStories events.

Updated February 17, 2010

Dawn Comer joins HerStories! Her workshop “On Becoming a Fish: Birthing Characters and Finding Voice Through Fiction” is scheduled March 13 at 2:30pm.

Dawn received her MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Notre Dame. She currently teaches part-time at Defiance College and is writing two books: Raised in a Corn Palace: Stories from the National Association of Tourist Attraction Survivors, and Fella With an Umbrella: Discovering Joy on the Autism Spectrum. The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature has awarded her with The Paul Somers Prize for Creative Prose for the story “Raised in a Corn Palace” (2008) and the memoir “Fella with an Umbrella: Finding Joy on the Autism Spectrum” (2009). Learn more about her in an interview from last September.

Here’s what the session offers:

Birthing characters requires that a writer surrender conscious control and instead create a welcoming space for characters to grow and be born into. In so doing, characters may not only provide the voice of a story, they may also help writers discover their own.

This workshop will explore ways to welcome and get to know characters, to explore their yearnings, perhaps even to push through taboos. Participants are encouraged to come to the workshop with a character in mind that they would like to develop.

Registration for writing workshops is recommended due to limited space. The form, available here, may be submitted by email herstories.project @ gmail.com or at Everybody Reads bookstore (M-SA 11am to 7pm, SU 9am to 4pm).

Updated February 17, 2010

Andrea King Collier joins HerStories! She is the author of Still with Me: A Daughter’s Journey of Love and Loss (2003) and lead author of The Black Woman’s Guide to Black Men’s Health (2007). Her reading is scheduled March 20 at 1:00pm.

Andrea has been writing and speaking about health and health policy issues for the past 20 years. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Lansing State Journal and the Post-Tribune. Her work appears regularly in Essence, More, Ladies Home Journal, Woman’s Day, O, the Oprah Magazine, and other publications. Learn more about Andrea on her web site.

Updated Jan. 25

On March 27 at 4:00pm, join the HerStories Benefit Show & Open Mike! This finale event of the month-long series is a fundraiser for the Women’s Center of Greater Lansing.

The details are coming together for an amazing ensemble of performances and author readings. Here is the growing list of contributors:

• Silvana Alfaro (Vagina Monologues ’08)
• Nancy Allen (co-founder Words of Hope and Healing)
• Laura Apol (author Crossing the Ladder of the Sun)
• Marilyn Mayer Culpepper (author Never Will We Forget)
• Tim Lane (poet, painter, & Scene Metrospace director/curator)
• Becky Payne (Words of Hope & Healing ’09)
• Christine Pereira (Women in the Arts Festival ’08)
• Lee Sayles (Women in the Arts Festival ’07-’09)
• Charles Thornton (storyteller extraordinaire)

Everybody Reads Books & Stuff is hosting all HerStories events. For anyone new to ER, it is an independent bookstore owned by Scott Harris. ER is in transition to become Michigan’s first cooperatively-owned bookstore and already boasts a host of volunteers.

ER serves the wider Lansing community as well as Eastside neighbors in a number of ways. For instance, the store’s Community Room is a hot-spot of activity with regular use by recovery groups, book clubs, and writers meetings.  Use of the Community Room for these nonprofit purposes is free.

Storyteller Charles Thornton joins The HerStories Project! He has graced Lansing at the Old Town Poets gathering over the years. More details about his storytelling adventures are coming in February!

Charles is storytelling on March 13 at 1:00pm for a kid-friendly audience.

Updated February 17, 2010

Marilyn Mayer Culpepper joins HerStories! Her workshop “Writing about Women” is scheduled March 20 at 2:30pm. She is emeritus faculty from Michigan State University and the author of several books documenting women in U.S. history, including the most recently published Never Will We Forget: Oral Histories about World War II (2008).

The workshop description is coming soon!

Registration for writing workshops is recommended due to limited space. The form, available here, may be submitted by email herstories.project @ gmail.com or at Everybody Reads bookstore (M-SA 11am to 7pm, SU 9am to 4pm).

Updated February 17, 2010

Holly Makimaa from Oasis Health & Wellness/ Yoga Center of East Lansing joins the HerStories program! Her workshop “Journaling through Change” is scheduled March 6 from 2:30-3:30pm. Holly has been teaching holistic journaling workshops for almost 10 years and has worked with clients nationally in telling their life stories. She is an avid yoga practitioner, meditator and contemplative at heart. She enjoys nature, spending time with children and writing in her spare time. Learn more from her web page.

Here’s what to expect at the workshop:

Learn to use writing as a way to navigate through change. Women have an innate understanding of change. Their bodies go through natural cycles that give them an enhanced ability to understand that we are always changing. We know that life could not exist without change. Throughout our lives we experience changes in our emotions, thoughts, dreams, relationships,jobs, families, health, etc. Journaling gives us a sacred space to enter into change and honor the feelings and thoughts we experience while clearing the way for us to touch an inner well of deep knowing that is changeless.

Registration for writing workshops is recommended due to limited space. The form, available here, may be submitted by email herstories.project @ gmail.com or at Everybody Reads bookstore (M-SA 11am to 7pm, SU 9am to 4pm).

The Women’s Center of Greater Lansing has joined The HerStories Project! The Women’s Center is co-promoting events and will receive donations raised at the Benefit Show & Open Mike on March 27.