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writing as a healing art (midway reflections on VONA)

i am entering my fourth day at VONA, voices of our nation, a writing workshop for people of color.

sometimes you can’t know how much you need a thing until you are sitting there, skin lit up with chills because you just shared a whole truth and they heard you and they felt it too.

i am in the inaugural speculative fiction workshop here, which, of course, started on octavia’s birthday. my classmates are gifted writers who each have different skills and strengths and, together, are going to shape the future of our genre.

i want to come back for a residency, political content, travel writing and poetry workshops over the next decade of my life.

so far i have written a short story, two poems which i read (in front of other people! me! poems!), written and recorded a song sketch, made a collage, received in-depth review of my work, bonded with a lot of incredible writers and had multiple major breakthroughs about my writing life.

we are halfway through the week.

i am not oriented towards utopias, or heavens. but i do think it is important to have healing experiences in my field of passion, in the work i am called to do.

i talked with my mom yesterday and she said that she and my dad were proud of me, were saying to each other, ‘our daughter’s a writer!’ and that they had known that for a long time, but now it seems like i know.

it’s true.

inside, inside where i am only who i am, i am a writer. accepting that has been and continues to be a healing, transformative journey.

now. back to my homework.