Every Wednesday in March, April and through May 23, the wonderful Dean Lofton is at The Writing Barn teaching her class Write Your Life as a Woman, a journal-style workshop that guides women to find their voices and write their stories.
We asked Dean five questions about herself and her class:
WB: Tell us about yourself and how you came to be teaching this class?
DL: I began teaching classes when I lived in Charleston, South Carolina. I wrote a personal commentary column for the women’s magazine Skirt and a body/mind/spirit column for the daily paper The Post and Courier. I was invited to teach an existing memoir writing class for senior citizens. I loved it and soon developed a class for women, Write Your Life as a Woman, and later added a co-ed class, The Closet Fiction Writers Workshop. Since then, the class has been taught in other South Carolina cities, at women’s retreats and women’s studies conferences and in Austin too.
WB: What are the top 3 things you love best about your workshop?
DL: The diversity of the stories and the similarities of the stories, and how much we learn from each others’ stories.
Seeing students recognize the value in their own talent and stories.
Creativity is always about more than the end product, it’s about the joy of the creative act. I love that the class tends to inspire all areas of students’ lives.
WB: Who would benefit most by taking your class and why?
DL: Anyone could benefit because it’s radical self-care to carve out two hours a week to spend quality time with yourself and your creativity, thoughts and feelings away from all things digital.
WB: Do you prefer sweet or sour?
DL: Sweet!
WB: List in order of importance: Play, Work, Coffee, Tea, Chocolate, Sleep.
DL: Play, Sleep, Tea, Work, Chocolate, Coffee
Thanks, Dean! Find out more about your instructor at her website and register for her class.