Workshops | Online & In-Person

LaDonna teaches writing workshops both online (via Zoom) and in-person, bringing her twenty-some years of writing experience to students who are just beginning to put pen to paper as well as those who have been telling stories for years.

Currently, she is teaching a one-session workshop of craft basics for those who want to write about their lives, and a four-session workshop about writing through shame.

Dates, times and locations TBA. Scroll down for workshop descriptions.

Are you one of those people to whom everyone says: You really should write about your life! Perhaps you’re nearing your golden years, and you’d like to record some of your (mis)adventures or preserve family stories before they disappear. Maybe you’ve wondered how to begin, or worried that no one will want to read what you’ve written, or told yourself you couldn’t possibly do such a thing because you’re “not really a writer?”

You don’t need previous writing experience to learn how to write about your life in an engaging way. This two-hour generative writing workshop provides thoughtful guidance, craft basics, and easy prompts to help you make your memories come alive on the page. You’ll walk out of this experience with one short written work about your life and lots of ideas for how to keep the stories coming—including a take-home packet that includes writing prompts and a reading list. All you need to bring is yourself, your memories, and something to write on.

Upcoming Classes

Shame is suffocation. It robs us of agency, creativity, confidence, joy. When we feel a profound sense of shame, it changes the story that we tell about ourselves. It makes us believe that the shameful thing—the thing that happened to us, the thing we did to ourselves, the thing other people tell us isn’t quite right—it makes us believe that shameful thing is WHO WE ARE.

This generative writing workshop delves deep into the sensitive work of untangling the myriad shames that bind us. In four separate two-hour sessions, we will take a long hard look at what shame actually is, we will interrogate the ways in which shame has harmed us, we will talk about who shame actually benefits, and we will discover how to take the fangs out of shame’s mouth by writing our stories out in the open, on a bright new page.

During the course of this workshop, we will read the works of other writers who have written through their shame, and we will use lists and grids and a variety of writing exercises to see ourselves — and our shames — clearly.

This workshop requires no small amount of bravery and vulnerability. If you are ready to take up a pen (or keyboard) and write yourself free, let’s begin.

Upcoming Classes