Workshop: Trauma, Tresses and Truth—Writing Our Hair

This interactive session is a nurturing, intentional space to write and share your natural hair stories led by Lyzette Wanzer the author of Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narrative.

This writing workshop is geared for African American, Afro Latina, and multiracial women who are interested in a safe, nurturing, intentional space to write and share their hair stories. Poems, essays and short stories are all welcome. The workshop will take place in a computer lab on laptop computers. However, feel free to bring your writing materials, be that a literal notebook, journal, sketchbook or laptop. All emotions that surface—anger, sadness, outrage, empowerment or tears—are welcome. Participants should be comfortable sharing drafts with others.

Wanzer's work appears in over twenty-five literary journals, books and magazines. She is a contributor to The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays (Wyatt-MacKenzie), The Naked Truth, Essay Daily and the San Francisco University High School Journal. A four-time San Francisco Arts Commission, three-time Center for Cultural Innovation and first-time California Humanities grant recipient, Wanzer serves as Judge for the Soul-making Keats Literary Competition’s Intercultural Essay category and the Women’s National Book Association’s Effie Lee Morris Fiction category. She has been accepted to writing residencies across the country and in Canada. She teaches creative writing, with a specialty in professional development, at several Bay Area institutions. Her book, Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narrative, was published by the Chicago Review Press in November 2022. She’s currently writing her next book, Building a Career as a Literary Artist of Color.

Space limited. Reservations required: (415) 557-4545 or online.