The Tale of Two Bethanies: Trauma in the Creative Writing Class

Abstract

The author, a Creative Writing teacher at a university in an underpopulated Western state, reflects on the number of traumatised students in her nonfiction classes who have come to the class to bear a 'healing testimony', as well as learn how to write. Citing works by writing teachers and trauma therapists, she describes the similarities between Judith Lewis Herman's 'trauma narrative' and the good writing a writing teacher asks students to produce. Using two case histories from her own teaching, she asserts that a writer can help students heal emotional scars and become better writers, and offers advice and precautions.