Vivé Griffith
Writer | Educator | Narrative Medicine Facilitator
Write with Me in 2024
I have several new and revamped workshop offerings this year, including Narrative Medicine workshops for clinicians and caregivers. Some workshops will be offered at no charge; others will have a sliding scale or set registration fee. All workshops will be designed to provide a safe, supportive, and imaginative space for exploring and sharing our stories and building community. No prerequisites, no requirement to do more than show up with an open mind and a ready pen.
Write Together Saturdays
In April of 2020, when the pandemic shut down our classrooms and pushed us all apart and online, I began offering Write Together Saturdays to members of the Free Minds community. We ended up meeting one Saturday a month for years. For many of us, including me, these workshops were a lifeline. They connected us to each other and to our stories, and they gave us a space for responding to and processing the complicated times we were (and still are) living in. I’m thrilled to open these up in 2024 to participants in the broader community and to keep them free of charge to anyone who wants to participate. For those who want to support the work through paying, there is an optional workshop fee of $25.
At Write Together Saturdays we explore poems, stories, and music and listen for where they want to lead us as writers. Each session features multiple opportunities to write, with carefully-chosen prompts guiding us, and opportunities to share our writing with each other. Sharing is always optional, with the belief that the most important exchange is the one between you and the page. My goal is to create the space for each of us to explore what’s calling to us and to leave the session feeling connected with ourselves and each other.
Alll workshops are held via Zoom.
Fall Dates:
September 21, 10:30-12 CT. REGISTER HERE
October 19, 10:30-12 CT. REGISTER HERE
November 16, 10:30-12 CT. REGISTER HERE
December 14, 10:30-12 CT. [CANCELED]
**check back for 2025 dates in January**
Caregivers Hour
Whether you’re looking after an ailing family member, caring for a small child, or engaged in a job or volunteer role that focuses on helping others, giving of ourselves can be both rewarding and depleting. And so often the caregivers are the ones who don’t receive (or ask for) the support they need. As a longtime workshop facilitator and newly minted Narrative Medicine practitioner, I’ve witnessed how writing in community can offer us a time apart to hear our own stories, connect to the stories of others, and reclaim our voice and our strength. After developing my two-hour workshop for caregivers, Connection and Story, I’m working on a new offering, a one-hour Narrative Medicine workshop that offers caregivers an opportunity to reflect, reconnect, and recharge themselves. Starting in October.
Fall 2024 Dates Coming Soon!
The Artist’s Way: An Exploration of the Creative Process
Since 1992, Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way has been helping people unlock their creativity and build lives where writing, painting, sketching, singing, and all other kinds of making are at the center. This 13-week workshop provides a community space for going deep with Cameron’s seminal course, while also exploring he creative processes of a number of artists, including choreographer Twyla Tharp, artist Kehinde Wiley, writer Elizabeth Gilbert, and poet Rainer Maria Rilke. These models are meant to introduce us to new artists as well as help us reflect on approaches to creative work from different disciplines and time frames to help us identify and cultivate our own creative process.
Planned for late 2024. Contact me to join the waiting list.
Previous Workshops and Talks: A Sampling
I have been offering workshops since 2001 and have worked with a wide range of students and clients. I’ve also officiated weddings and memorial services and trained others to teach in community spaces. I would love to customize something for you or for your organization. Here are a few of the types of workshops I have facilitated over the years:
Storytelling for Social Change
Poetry: Tools of the Trade
Writing About Art: Ekphrastic Poetry
Poetry and Meaning Making
Poetry and the Art of Being Human
Poetry: A Focus on Place
Teaching Writing for Social Change
Op-ed Writing for Activitsts
Teaching Op-Ed Writing to Youth
Best Practices for Teaching the Humanities to Adults
Why It Matters that We Are Creative
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