Update:  The Writing Workshop is now full.  Please sign up on the interest form below to be notified when the next session is forming.

Our online, Unspoken Ink: Young Adult Cancer Creative Writing Workshop is designed to take you on a journey through your cancer diagnosis and into your survivorship with a small group of your young adult cancer patient/survivor peers. Each 8-week Writing Workshop consists of a weekly writing night attended via online video chat. We will get to know one another in an intimate, 18 person setting and address issues that transport us from initial diagnosis into the new normal and survivorship.

The next session will start on Thursday, April 25th, meeting each Thursday at 3:30 pm PT / 5:30 pm CT / 6:30 pm ET for 2 hours via video chat through Thursday, June 13th. (please note our earlier start time!)

Where: Online video chat. We’ll send you more information about joining after you register. Please have a microphone headset and a webcam.

Who: Young adult cancer patients/survivors and young adult cancer caregivers.

(Lacuna Loft considers anyone diagnosed with cancer, at any stage of the experience, to be a survivor!)

When: The writing group meets for 2 hours each week, for 8 weeks. A commitment to attend each week is important to group continuity and in creating a safe space. Please be on time 🙂

How does it work:

• This workshop uses the Amherst Writing and Artists (AWA) Method.  The facilitator provides a writing prompt and you can use that prompt in any way you’d like to create a story over a set amount of time. Once we’ve finished our writing (yes, the facilitator writes too!), everyone is given the opportunity to read their writing out loud. Though sharing is optional, hearing your own story and hearing someone else’s, teaches us about our experiences and our stories. Once the piece is read, we reflect on the writing – what did we like, what stood out, what did we remember. Everything is considered fiction so we do not respond to the writer as a support group may, but keep the focus on the writing.
• Sometimes the prompts are about cancer, sometimes indirectly related to cancer, and sometimes not about cancer at all. Above all, the writing program emphasizes that we are more than a diagnosis.
• Following each weekly session, you may decide to submit your writing to Mallory (mallory@lacunaloft.org) for publication on LacunaLoft.org in their Young Adult Voices program section. This is not mandatory!

Sponsored in part by a grant from Shire and an anonymous donor.