Cooper Street Workshop: Using Mindful Self-Compassion to Empower Your Writing

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

This workshop, led by a trained mindful self-compassion (MSC) teacher, will focus on using gentle attention to cultivate a writing practice that feeds you. For writers to conjure distinctive worlds, it helps to turn the lens of awareness on the textures of daily life and our internal landscapes. MSC can help us meet ourselves the way we would meet a good friend, and it can serve as a tool both for the writer and the text. First, we’ll experiment with relating differently to internal critical voices and develop a compassionate voice to help guide our editing process. Then, we’ll discuss techniques for writing from our senses and creating surprising figurative language. We’ll move through a short meditation to practice sensing and savoring, and we’ll generate fiction or nonfiction of our own.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Sarah Westbrook is a writer and editor living in Philadelphia. She is an MFA candidate at Rutgers University–Camden, where she also teaches composition. She has previously worked at a policy research organization, a college access nonprofit, a literacy nonprofit, and a shelter for families with children. In 2021, Sarah completed a yearlong training to become a trained teacher of mindful self-compassion. MSC continues to teach her about what it means to be human, and how to nurture understanding for our tricky human brains.

This is a virtual event. To facilitate community-building, please plan to have your camera on during the workshop.

Register

$20 General, $5 Camden residents & Rutgers-Camden students