Author: Sherisa de Groot

📌 WORKSHOP | SPARK: A CreaTiff Writing Club

Dates: Sundays, June 9 – June 30 Duration: 1.5 Hours | 5 PM – 6:30 PM EST Location: Online Cost: $40 13 seats left! Details In this writing workshop, Tiffany B. Grantham will provide a space for creativity and learning. Workshop participants will explore their creativity through different mediums of instrumental music, art and material culture with inspired dialogue. How can a writer learn and express their creativity without fear of their voice being rejected? “The cure is to have it welcomed and affirmed.”–Pat Schneider Participants will have the option to share their work and receive verbal feedback. Previous writing experience is not required. Click here for more info and to register for SPARK: A CreaTiff Writing Club.

📌WORKSHOP | Writing Deliciously: Food & Memory

By Sherisa de Groot

Dates: May 18 Duration: 2 Hours | 2 PM – 4 PM PST (5 PM – 7 PM EST) Location: Online Cost: $75 17 seats left! Details How can writing about food open up evocative spaces of comfort, family, ancestral lineage, memory, shared rituals, and desires? How can writing through and about food strengthen our communities and open up our creative craft? Along with celebrating and exploring food writing by poets such Naomi Shihab Nye, Audre Lorde, Chen Chen, and Lucille Clifton, this class will offer numerous delicious writing prompts and opportunities for feedback, connection, and sharing. Click here for more info and to register for WRITING DELICIOUSLY: FOOD & MEMORY. READ MORE: Ten Questions for Jane Wong AND MORE: Have You Eaten Yet? Plus, we’re holding a special Q&A with Jane Wong and you’ve got until May 10 to get your questions in!

Ten Questions for Shannon Sanders

By Sherisa de Groot

What inspired you to tell this story? I’m a storyteller through and through—for most of my life, I’ve processed lived experience by writing fiction. In 2015, I had some time on my hands (this was before kids!) and a few story ideas I really wanted to get onto the page. After I’d written the first two pieces, I could already see the contours of a collection coming together (though I didn’t realize it right away). There were characters I wanted to explore further and questions I wanted to answer. Once the ball was rolling, I was excited to keep going! What did you edit out of this book? Honestly? Very little came out of the book. I’ve never been a “messy” drafter—for the most part, I try to do the work of editing down my ideas while they’re still just mental exercises, before I ever put anything down on paper. That certainly doesn’t mean no editing itself happened (plenty did—many thanks to my editor, Yuka Igarashi at Graywolf!), but I didn’t need to edit anything …

WORKSHOP: Writing Through Life’s Transitions

By Sherisa de Groot

Dates: May 1, May 3, May 5 Duration: 2.5 Hours | 7:30 PM – 10 PM EST (MAY 1 & 3); 12:30 PM – 3 PM EST (MAY 5) Location: Online Cost: $275 15 spaces available Details Explore the art of using writing as a powerful tool to navigate significant life transitions. Led by an experienced educator and writer, this course will delve into crafting compelling narratives inspired by personal experiences. Participants will learn how to harness the power of storytelling to find healing, transformation, and strength during times of change. Click here for more info and to register for WRITING THROUGH LIFE’S TRANSITIONS.

Dani McClain | Mama’s Writing

By Sherisa de Groot

Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, created by Deesha Philyaw. How has the experience of raising children shaped your own personal growth as a writer and as an individual? Being pregnant and having a very young child motivated me. I worked on a piece about the Black maternal health crisis while in my third trimester, and it was published in The Nation when my daughter was about six months old. That article became the basis of the first chapter of my book WE LIVE FOR THE WE, which was published in 2019 when she was nearly 3. It’s a book about parenting and it’s a memoir, so everything I was experiencing in my daughter’s early months and years felt like potential material for the book. As she has gotten older, I’ve taken on additional caregiving responsibilities in my family. I’ve also moved more behind the scenes in publishing. I worked as a ghostwriter on a memoir. I’ve served as a developmental editor on some fantastic nonfiction projects, supporting authors who are writing on topics …