The catharsis of creative writing

The craft of writing transpires a way to express feelings for life’s oddball, tragic or enlightening array of possible circumstances. Writing is a form of cathartic release that, if harvested, can alleviate guilt, help come to terms with one’s past, present or future, and meditate on the hand that life dealt you.

For the women and children residing at the Aurora House, writing is a way to squeeze life’s lemons in a non-judgmental atmosphere.

“When you talk about creative writing, immediately the women freeze,” said Denise Fox, president of the Aurora House. “They thing English class; they think judgment.”

The Aurora House is a housing program in Toledo for homeless women and children. The program has been in operation since 1986. The Aurora House is unique in comparison to other local housing programs for homeless women because the children can remain with their mothers while the mothers try to solve problems which may include homelessness, chemical dependency, mild depression and domestic violence. The Aurora House is a long-term residency that allows the women to stay for up to two years.

“Whatever your reason for being homeless, we will find a way to serve you,” Fox said.

Practicing creative writing grew to be a method of exploring feelings and coming to terms with being homeless while paving the path to redemption.

“This is effective for women who haven’t had the opportunity to explore how they feel about being homeless,” Fox said. “They’re often allowed to express the guilt and shame they feel.”

Creative writing is very different than precise, technical writing. Grammar and sentence structure are important but not as much as concentrated feelings.

“It’s not about how well you write,” Fox said. “It’s about letting people understand how you’re feeling. [Creative writing] allows them the opportunity to put their feelings on paper and start addressing those feelings.”

The issue of homelessness is often unavoidable in certain situations. When fate takes its toll, the Aurora House provides a way for people to get back on their feet. It is all too easy to grow feelings of resentment or hatred for having to resort to what some may call a “crutch.”

“We’re working with both mothers and their children regarding how difficult it is to have your life entirely disrupted by something like homelessness,” Fox said.

Adolescents are known to grow angry with their mothers because they’re homeless. At the same time, mothers are known to feel guilty for their children living in a homeless program. The creative writing workshops offered to the Aurora House have been successful in helping people dispel these feelings and move on with life.

“We’re really trying to utilize writing for the women and children to convey feelings,” Fox said. “We want to deal with the issues, get them stabilized and assist them in the healing process. Writing is about healing. It allows you the opportunity to heal.”

Creative writing workshops were introduced to the Aurora House by Jane Bradley, professor of creative writing at the UT. Bradley has been developing writing projects with the residents at the Aurora House for three years. With a grant from the Toledo Arts Commission, Bradley was able to concentrate their work into chapbooks.

“They really get in touch with their hearts and lives,” Bradley said. “The prompts force them into concrete detail. That’s where the action is in poetry. They write incredible, amazing work that makes them value themselves and see that their lives are hard but they’re strong enough to come through it. Pride and self-esteem are the results. There are always laughter and tears after the workshops.”

This year, Bradley developed a service learning course called “Writing in the Community” designed to inspire undergraduates to get involved and help bridge the gap between the community and the university.

“There’s a world of people out there with different histories and backgrounds,” Bradley said. “I’m a big believer in service learning. For me, it’s a personal mission to help people, especially battered women and those with substance abuse problems.”

Most often, these are the causes of homelessness for women and children.

“It’s a world I know very well,” Bradley said. “I had teachers that pulled me aside and gave me extra assignments. It empowered me, it works. I wanted to do what was done for me.”

The process of writing, especially from personal history, is a way to find oneself amidst a world of chaos and debris.

“I believe with honest words we write about ourselves,” Bradley said. “We write a little more to claim ourselves.”

The workshops have proven to be help women get back on their feet and grow a renewed sense of self respect.

“I think that life is a process of continually giving birth to ourselves,” Bradley said. “We rebirth ourselves all the time. In these workshops, the women get reborn through their words. They lay claims to themselves; they find strengths and talent.”

Bradley and the students in the “Writing in the Community” class meet with the women and children of the Aurora House as well as other women from the NAOMI House, Bethany House and the Boys and Girls Club.

“Every week, they read each other’s stuff aloud,” Bradley said. “It validates them. They get to hear how good they are. They want an audience, they see how powerful words can be. They don’t know how powerful this is until they read aloud.”

Bradley always prints chapbook collections of the work written by women and children in the workshops. The latest collection is called “Aurora’s Diamonds in the Rough.”

Students type the poems and fix any grammatical problems so that at the end of the semester they can be arranged in order into a single file. The collections are then assembled and taken to be printed.