Witnessing and responding to trauma narratives inside a writing workshop at a homeless shelter

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In the world as it is, when we as a general public think of writers, rarely, if ever, do we think of writers like those who have come to the shelter house and participated in the Community Stories Writing Workshop at a homeless shelter. Rarely do we consider the hundreds of others in the city or the thousands outside of it. We do not see them composing thought, from pen to paper, keyboard to screen—writing and revising. We do not see their emotional compromises, from draft to draft, layered and conflicting. We do not see their labor. What we see, and what we generally see, is the polished work, because although we may seek to understand writers’ lived trauma, we expect their perseverance more (Stokas, 2015). Yet, what if we (as writing teachers and educators) were to insist on a more humanizing practice (Paris & Winn, 2014) of witnessing others’ trauma narratives? What if we were to insist on acknowledging writers’ processes, at least within the contexts of our own workshops, to see not only what is already on the page but also all the unseen work that it took for them to get there? What would we see? What would we witness? In this essay, I reflect on my role as workshop facilitator and, specifically, how I use personalized correspondence to help writers negotiate the layers of vulnerabilities that come with revisiting painful memories. By offering what I have learned during my seven-year ethnographic exploration of the CSWW, I hope to illuminate the importance of recognizing writers’ emotional labor as a humanizing practice of witnessing (Paris & Winn, 2014) trauma narratives and how we, as writing teachers, might reposition ourselves from that of presumed authorities on writing to that of “worthy witnessing” (Winn & Ubiles, 2011, p. 296) of writers’ drafts—if they grant us admission.

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