Writing Workshops  

These workshops create a community of people committed to using their writing to help themselves and others transform their lives and create a more equitable, inclusive world. Herstory’s approach is rooted in the knowledge that each and every person has a story to tell that can make a difference by helping others choose a different path, find the strength to advocate for themselves, grow, heal, and, ultimately, change their lives.  

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Each workshop begins with inviting participants to finish this sentence in the way that is most authentically their own: “If my words had the power…” This then leads to the “Page One Moment” tool, used in Herstory since its founding in 1997: “Where would you want a stranger-reader, someone who doesn’t know you, to meet you on page one? At what moment in your life would you begin your story, so that from the very first page a stranger could care enough to keep reading, to walk in your shoes as they read?” This empathy-rooted approach to identifying the issues that are central to each writer's need to be heard and creating a scene out of which a story begins to be told works equally well whether the workshop is filled with children in elementary school or men who have just spent decades in prison. It allows anyone, regardless of writing experience or education level, to ground their stories in powerful narrative structures that are equally available to all.