The most important skill of a storyteller is the ability to re-vision the world we inhabit.  Author Saun McNiff writes “everything is subject to reconstruction and renewal. The ‘re’ factor is the basis of resurrecting, reshaping, regenerating, reviving and rejuvenating.”  Memoir writers live in a a state of daily search and exploration to mine their lives to  create a compelling and teachable story.

What happens to us in life that breaks us is the catalyst for a new life and a transformation. It’s also what makes a great story, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way at first, because often we have to relive a challenging time and make it work on the page. We bring our personal darkness into a story before we allow the light to enter. 

As writers, it’s our job to take readers on a whole journey, and to do this successfully, we have to explore the whole of the journey.

 

“When we deny the story, it defines us.
When we own the story, it becomes a brave new ending.”

– Brené Brown

– 

Perhaps your story begins at the moment we learn someone we loved died, someone let us down, we left a relationship we loved or someone left us.  Maybe you discovered you had an illness you might have to live with your whole life, or that your parents weren’t your birth parents.  Perhaps it starts with a move across country or a new job.  Either way, in every story, near the beginning, something happens, and it triggers a series of events and reflections as we look back upon them, forever learning and reframing the story as we gain new perspectives.

This is the most essential part of your story to lay the foundation for what is to come.

Writing is at its most rich when you share the darkness.  

 

“Light needs much dark in order to dazzle.”

– Rosemary Waldrop

       

Don’t Stay in the Darkness – Every Story lets in the Light

After writing about this change in your life, the event, it’s just as important to show a balanced view of the perpetrator, of the person or people or institution, or illness that wronged you, perhaps by putting yourself in their shoes or its shoes.

Did you wrong yourself?  If that is true, it’s also important to see yourself in that role!

When we are stuck in our story, it’s often because we haven’t explored the circularity of the story – what Greeks call the Kairos of time, and explore the deeper wisdom that is there for us that circles us back.

What a writer does AFTER allowing themselves to write to the anger, the pain, the betrayal, is also critical to the story, because they must learn to write through it in a balanced way for a story to progress, to let in the light, the air and the hope.

 

“In a world dominated by images, the reality is always mediated, filtered, pre-selected.
Every frame is part of a larger frame,
in turn, part of an even bigger one…
and every frame has its truth, that’s reframing.”

– Claudio Bindella, Milan artist

 

Intimate talk with Author, Actor and Activist Kimleigh Smith

In addition to four small group live online sessions and one night in my living room, writers taking this course will have the opportunity to talk online with actor, writer, playwrite and author Kimleigh Smitth, who reframed her college rape story for an engaging and often very funny, liberating solo show –  T-O-T-A-L-L-Y.  I had the honor of bringing her show to Kauai years ago, and since then she has performed it hundreds of times to standing ovations, receiving multiple awards. Kimleigh will discuss how reframing her story, playing with time in the story, and speeding up certain scenes helped bring her to the end of the story, when she literally wears a cape, has superpowers and is living her best life.  How does a rape story bring the light and wisdom in? Kimleigh will show us how.

Television credits include, “Shameless”, “9-1-1”, “Criminal Minds”, “Scandal”, “Castle”, “Bones”,” “The Mentalist”, “Parenthood”, “Law and Order: LA”, and “Heroes”. Kimleigh has written and continues to perform her Inernationally Acclaimed Multi-Award Winning solo show, T-O-T-A-L-L-Y! She is grateful that her career is always flourishing in theatre, commercials, television, and film.

One hour talk students taking this course, with Q & A – December 5TH, Sunday  |  4 p.m. PST / 7 p.m. EST

                                       

What a Story is by Laura Lentz

I want to tell you everything,
because I lived it all.
the dark shadows of every monster,
the sweeping light of angel wings.
I am not remaking my story,
I am remaking the world.

In 4-weeks writers will practice shifting from Trauma to Hope to Magic:

 

WEEK ONE:  WRITING WHAT HAPPENED / WARNINGS TO YOUR PAST SELF  

This week is the moment we explore the darkest part of what happened to us.  If we were a victim, we claim our victim moment and write deeply into it.  We will also explore what your future self would have said to your past self.  

WEEK TWO:  BREAKING: EXPLORING TWO VIEWPOINTS    

Writing (2) letters with two separate perspectives to the person or institution or event or illness that was or is shattering to you.  This helps you dive deeper into the story and triggering event and discover new aspects critical to the reframing of the story.

WEEK THREE:  SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE 

This session is the critical week where the writer is asked to explore the shifting perspective of the person who was wronged and the person or institution or illness that did the wronging (Perpetrator explored). The most powerful class of the series, expect a complete shift in your story during this week.  We will also explore the loss of innocence.

WEEK FOUR: LETTING IN THE MAGIC, EMBRACING YOUR SUPERPOWERS

In this final week, we will deeply explore the person you became  – even the mythical creature you may have become in the retelling,  including the superpowers you now possess. This final week,  we will be encouraged and inspired to stand in the strength of our lives, and bring our light into the world.  

Writing about Breaking is an Act of Healing

 

By participating in this live 4-week class series, you will learn how to bring hope into dark times, turn curses into blessings through deep writing exercises designed to expand the way you look at your past experiences.  

While in this discovery, you will learn the art of writing by practicing, deeply listening, reading out loud and hearing what is good in your story reflected back to you.

LEARN IN A SMALL, LIVE GROUPS

Each week you will take the class with the same 8-10 writers from all over the world,  writing together and sharing your stories in a 2 hour to 2 1/2 hour class.

Writers work closely together for six weeks, deeply bonding and supporting each other’s creative leaps. Writers who must miss a class may audit another live class on the schedule.

If you have to miss a week, you can audit the class with another live group on another day, or receive the class via Keynote.  Writers learn from the curriculum, but also from the positive  feedback received from other writers.  When we focus on what is good in writing, we develop an ear for inviting more of what is good.

CREATE CONTENT FOR A LARGER BODY OF WORK

This four week course is especially compelling if you are working on a book, blog, poetry or a series of essays.  It’s a wonderful way to explore an event and learn how step by step to be in a deeper discovery for yourself and the readers.

Many of our students have gone on to publication through this process of writing every week, and many of our writers are authors often writing beside writers who are new to the practice. We all learn from each other’s work each week, and this course will help every writer go deeper to gain new perspectives for the sake of healing both the writer and the reader.

INSPIRATION TO REFRAME YOUR STORY

This four week series was developed by me ten years ago for a few of my writers who seemed to need more balance to their stories, so we can transcend the triggering event to offer a deeper perspective. Since then, I have expanded it into a comprehensive workbook – STORYquest, the Writer, the Hero, the Journey.  This course is a quick way to reframe any story you are writing, any essay or any chapter in a book.

Pre-writing exercises often lead us into a longer write.

After, we share our stories and deeply listen with positive feedback.  Writers become part of a private Facebook writing community with other writers taking the same curriculum.  Throughout the weeks, writers share and comment through the Facebook community..

 

Educator: Laura Lentz, author

Laura Lentz is the author of  STORYquest, the Writer, the Hero, the Journey and the soon to be published Grace of the World, an anthology to honor earth. Laura is a writing coach and developmental editor, teaching creative writing workshops online and on the north shore of Kauai for ten years. Her workbook helps writers write to every stage of their story inspired by the Hero’s Journey through 12-weeks of writing prompts and examples out of best selling memoirs and poetry. Laura helps writers create content and expand their body of work through unique methods – offering challenging and thought provoking writing prompts inspired by poetry, mythology and segments from literature.

Laura creates the curriculum for the 6-week writing workshops also taught by Guest Teachers.

Laura’s 6-week workshops are online and on the north shore of Kauai. Laura serves on the faculty of The Kauai Writers Conference, Covid willing… and is conducting a Master Class for writers who want to write in sacred places on Kauai and allow Kauai’s beauty to influence their work.

Educator: Robin Gadient

Meet Robin Gadient – Teaching Friday and Saturday

Robin Gadient, teacher of STORYquest, the Writer, the Hero, the Journey has developed a following as both a writer and a teacher. Robin has been writing in Laura’s writing groups creating poetry and heart opening stories for several series. Sometimes the student becomes the teacher right before your eyes.  Robin graduated from UCSB with a BA in literature. Robin has the uncanny ability to hold space for all writers and respond in a way that creates the needed energy to create her community within a larger community.

Signups for this Series Opens November 19th for new students.  Contact Laurawriter@me.com with your request for this series!

Thursday Online 

with Laura Lentz

One Spot Available

– 5 sessions –  

Dec. 2, 9, 16, 23

4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours

Guest Teacher: Kimleigh Smith
Sunday, 12/0
5 4 pm PST

Video available


$170.

Sunday Online 

SOLD OUT

– 5 sessions –

Nov. 28, Dec. 5, 12, 19

10:30 a.m. PST
Class is 2 1/2 hours

 


Guest Teacher: Kimleigh Smith
Sunday, 12/05 4 pm PST

Video available


$170.

Monday Online 

with Laura Lentz 

SOLD OUT

– 5 sessions

Nov. 29th, Dec. 6, 13, 20th

4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours

Guest Teacher: Kimleigh Smith
Sunday, 12/05 4 pm PST

Video available


$170.

Tuesday Online –

with Laura Lentz

SOLD OUT

– 5 sessions –

 Nov. 30, Dec. 7, 14, 21

4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours

Guest Teacher: Kimleigh Smith
Sunday, 12/05 4 pm PST

Video available


$170.

Wednesday

Kauai & Online 

SOLD OUT

– 5 sessions –

Dec. 1, 8, 15, 22

5:30 pm Hawaii /8:30 pm PST
Class series is 2 1/2 hours

Guest Teacher: Kimleigh Smith
Sunday, 12/05 4 pm PST

Video available


$170.

Classes Taught by Robin Gadient 

Saturday Online

with Robin Gadient

SOLD OUT

– 5 sessions –

Nov. 27TH, Dec. 4, 11, 18

10:30 a.m. PST
Class is 2 1/2 hours

Guest Teacher: Kimleigh Smith
Sunday, 12/05 4 pm PST

Video available


$170.

Friday Online

with Robin Gadient

TWO Spots Available

– 5 sessions –

Dec. 3, 10, 17, & Thurs, 12/23

11:00 a.m. PST
Class is 2 1/2 hours

Guest Teacher: Kimleigh Smith
Sunday, 12/05 4 pm PST

Video available


$170.