Announcing The Black Fox Writing Academy’s May Class! Join us for Distillation and Transplantation: A Guide to Processing Trauma through Fiction with Mary Shaver.
This class will be held live via Zoom and will NOT be recorded.
Class Description:
Writing about trauma is often framed as a path to healing, yet directly recounting personal experiences can make it difficult to see our work as a malleable piece of art. When we write too close to our own pain, revision becomes overwhelming, and feedback can feel personal rather than constructive. This class explores an alternative approach: distillation and transplantation of emotional truths.
Through readings, guided writing exercises, and discussions on narrative craft, students will explore how to process their own emotions through fiction. Rather than recounting lived experiences directly, they will learn to distill the core emotions within their memories and transplant them into completely new stories. We will experiment with techniques for creating emotional distance including metaphor, varied structure, and subtext to give shape to complex feelings. In doing so, students will develop tools for engaging with difficult emotions safely and creatively, transforming them into powerful fiction that is universal.
By the end of the course, students will have the tools to effectively engage with personal emotions through fiction. Students will leave with several original pieces of writing to continue transforming on their own.
Writers of all levels may register via our Submittable page.
When: May 31, 2025, from 2-4 PM EST
Investment for the workshop: $67
*Zoom access info for live attendees will be sent out immediately via Submittable, so be sure to check under the messages tab.
Thank you so much for considering the Black Fox Writing Academy!
About Your Instructor:
Mary Shaver is a writer, educator, and MFA candidate in Fiction at the University of South Florida. She earned her BS in Elementary Education and Sociology from Vanderbilt University, where she studied curriculum design and taught creative writing workshops to K-5 students.
Now, she teaches various workshops at the University of South Florida, grief support camps, and veterans art communities. In her own work, she explores research on creative writing pedagogy and narrative therapy practices. Her short stories emerge with themes of memory, transformation, and the intersection of the real and the imagined. Her fiction has been published in The Vanderbilt Review, Writing Queensland, and The Colored Lens, among others.
*Note: We will not be able to offer refunds once registration has been completed, unless for some reason we have to cancel the class. If you have any questions, please reach out to racquel@blackfoxlitmag.com.
