Letting grief speak : writing portals for life after loss
"They say that each death opens all the graves. The pandemic has brought this understanding to all of us. Many have lost people they loved. And the pains of separation, isolation, lack and even distrust of community have thrown open the lids of all the caskets of all the people and dreams lost before this. After channeling her own grief over her parents' deaths into her first novel, Diane Zinna started hosting hour-long drop-in writing classes during the pandemic that explored the beginnings, middles, and ends of writers' "grief stories." As the work continued and classes grew in size, she noticed that certain prompts had deeper and more resonant engagement with those experiencing grief than other, more generic writing prompts. Zinna began to think of these prompts as "portals," entryways in which out-of-control feelings around grief events can be faced narratively and navigated in ways that keep one grounded. Providing 90 portals for grief writing that are at turns gentle, unexpected, rebellious, and wonderfully strange, Letting Grief Speak meets writers of all levels where they are, no matter what kind of grief they are carrying. The book is meant for anyone who has found the act of writing to be an effective means of managing loss and is also intended for people at every stage of grief"-- Provided by publisher.