What we’re about
In this group Robert Quintana Hopkins, author of "Glass Closet: Poems and Essays," teaches how writing can be used as a therapeutic tool to recover from pain and trauma and as a tool for personal growth. These highly experiential meetings include interactive writing exercises and opportunities to share as participants witness each other's healing and allow their own healing to be witnessed in a safe and supportive community. • All levels of writing experience welcomed. • Participation is encouraged, but not required. • Writing will be confidential, unless participant chooses to share it. Materials needed: Pen or pencil. Paper or journal. "In Glass Closet, Robert Quintana Hopkins unapologetically writes about family secrets, coming out and living in between borders among other truths that many of us can relate to. He urges us to make peace with our personal and collective histories as we make choices about who we want to be. In the preface he writes, 'An alternative exists – freedom.' In choosing that freedom he makes himself vulnerable, sharing moments of pain, laughter, confusion and shame as he writes new self narratives and invites us to heal as he does throughout his text. In every poem I saw bits of myself. His poetry provided a language to name my own processes of transformation. It reminded me that I don’t have to be silent and that I don’t have to forget in order to survive." Eddy F. Alvarez, Instructor, Chicana and Chicano Studies, UC Santa Barbara