Narrative Writing Workshop Announcement: Writing the Hard Stuff: A Focus on the Fragment, Memory, and Self-Care with Michelle Guerrero Henry
When: May 23rd and May 30th 2026
Where: Online ( Zoom )
Time: 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM EST / 7:30 PM – 9 PM IST
Register here.
Fee: Sliding Scale INR 1500 – 2500 per session / $ 50 – $ 75 per session
( few need-based spots available )
Storytelling can be an act of survival. For many survivors of gender-based violence, traditional narrative structures can be harmful by forcing a structured order out of pain while not fully capturing the complexities of memory, trauma, and healing.
Designed for writers of all levels, this workshop explores how fragmented storytelling—short sections, non-linear narratives, white space—can help create guardrails to get the story onto the page. While these forms can create a mirror to the disjointed nature of memory and trauma, providing a more honest emotional truth and narrative, the goal is to tell the story on your terms.
Participants will engage in guided discussions, close readings that emphasize creative experimentation, and a generative writing exercise designed to distill memories. With an emphasis on self-care, we will discuss how to address emotional boundaries in the writing process, community support as sources of strength, and developing a sustainable writing practice.
We will explore questions like: How can fragmentation provide both distance and clarity? How can structure itself become a tool for healing?
By the end of this workshop, participants will leave with new writing, a deeper understanding of how content and form interact as a means of self-expression, and strategies for continuing their work. There will also be a review on how to approach this kind of work for feedback. Above all, this session is designed to foster a safe, compassionate space where everyone can connect, create, and reclaim their narratives in ways that feel authentic and empowering.
About the Facilitator:
Michelle Guerrero Henry is a Cuban/Ecuadorian writer living in an old farmhouse just outside NYC. She is a 2016-2018 Think Write Publish Fellow, 2017 VONA Fellow, and Writing Our Lives alum. A Best of the Net Nominee, her work has appeared in journals such as Longleaf Review, Pithead Chapel, and trampset, among others. She received her MFA in Creative Writing at Randolph College where she was a Nancy Craig Blackburn ’71 Fellow and lead non-fiction editor of Revolute. She is currently working on an epistolary memoir, How Things You Can’t Remember Live, about nature, inherited trauma, domestic violence, and the fallibility of memory.
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