Writing what's tough - June 10

Learn to tackle tough, raw material from life in Andrew Kaye Kauffmann's two-hour workshop, converting challenges into compelling writing.

In this two-hour workshop, we will explore the individual stories only we can tell. The ones we alone have faced, or the stories we may have witnessed.

JUNE 10, 6 PM CEST / 12 PM EDT, ONLINE

Join us for this workshop with Andrew Kauffmann, writer, and qualified coach. We’ll explore what in life inspires our writing and why our experiences can be tough to write about. Some questions we will ask ourselves:

• How can we write from lived experience on our terms?

• How can we respect boundaries as we write sensitive material?

• How do we manage our emotions without risking overwhelm?

Andrew will create a supportive and safe environment to discuss these questions. Through a series of reflective exercises, we will discover a story we each carry within, a story that may also need to be tamed or contained. It may grip us, prod and provoke us, and our task is to learn how to craft this story. This workshop provides us with space to start writing it.

Through exercises and coaching tips, you will:

• Attune yourself to what you're feeling about a story you really would like to tell

• Consider your biggest obstacles to writing from life and how they might be overcome

• Read texts from writers who wrote daringly, despite the risks they faced

• Let your emotions fuel your writing, making it authentic and individual to you

• Identify safeguards you can put in place to protect yourself as a writer

By the end of this two-hour workshop, we will find the courage to commit new words to a page.

ANDREW KAYE KAUFFMANN is a coach, writer, and teacher of creative writing. Trained and accredited by The Professional Writing Academy in the use of expressive and therapeutic writing, he uses stories, metaphor, and narrative tools to help his coaching clients cope with life transitions and to derive meaning from challenging life events. Open about his own experiences of living with OCD, experiencing depression, and being a kidney donor, he is the UK Centre for Mental Health Writer-In-Residence from May 2023. In 2022, he led London Lit Lab´'s Queer Storytelling course and in 2021 he facilitated Out on the Page's workshops for LGBTQ writers on memoir and exploring their stories. He was shortlisted in 2022 for The Literary Consultancy's Pen Factor award. He was a winner of the 2021 Spread the Word and Scribe UK competition for works of narrative non-fiction. A freelance journalist, his articles on health and culture have been published by HuffPost UK.