Writing Our Way Back to Each Other

We can’t do this thing alone.

Lately it seems like words like loneliness and community are everywhere. Research, podcasts, bestsellers — everyone is talking about it. And the statistics are clear — we are far less connected that we used to be. But our need for human connection is ancient, personal and idiosyncratic. It lives in stories.

While some debate how we got here (Screens? Social media? Pandemic?), this workshop asks another question — how can writing help us find our way back?

Creative work, especially in community, helps us hear our voices, connect to our visions, and find our own ways to join the conversation. It also helps us to be gentle with ourselves as we face our own belonging wounds and find our way within the big divides of our time.

Join us for this small group exploration into community, care, human connection, and the way creativity weaves through it all.

Here’s how it works:

Over seven sessions, we’ll gather on Zoom to write about histories of belonging and isolation, ways they changed when Covid arrived, and the visions we carry for what community could look like in our lifetimes.

This class will explore material that may be tender — there will be lots of room for feelings. We’ll leave each session with optional “social connection challenges” to push us just outside our comfort zones, and with resources (articles, podcasts, documentaries) by the teachers who inspired this work, including Mia Birdsong, Vivek Murthy, and Robert Putnam. In each session the facilitator will share one social connection innovator who is paving the way for something new.

Importantly, this program won’t present a single vision of what “community” is, or a romanticized view of what it was in the past. Each participant will be invited to explore what this means to them today. For one person, it might mean feeling closer to friends. For another, it might mean contributing to a culture of belonging in their apartment building. For another, it might be all about meeting new people, dating, hooking up. Big or small, local or global, every vision will be treated as equal, sacred, and full of creativity.