A Few testimonials About Carol’s Workshops

“I have already signed up for the next session and I’m really looking forward to it.”
–Barrie Trinkle, writer, Chapel Hill, NC

“Carol Henderson uses prompts that always lead me to be surprised by what I write. If you want to discover what you didn’t know you knew, felt, or thought, take this class!”
–Sherryl Kleinman, Emerita Professor of Sociology, UNC-Chapel Hill

“Carol Henderson’s Prompt by Prompt Zoom writing workshop is enriching in the depth and breadth of prompts, of quotations about writing, of resources shared after the sessions, and  because of her delicate gracefully empathic comments and her timing.  A writing feast for me, in 75 minutes! If you haven’t taken a workshop with her, do. You will be amazed at what you learn about yourself–and the world.”
–Joy Javits, Owner, In the Public Eye: Effective Communication

“Carol Henderson is a gift…a rare and true gift to everyone who is lucky enough to work with her. She possesses an inherent and unassuming talent to turn anyone into a ‘writer,’ especially those most convinced beforehand that they are NOT writers…”
–Donna M. Hampton, independent counselor, formerly Director, Grief & Bereavement Services, Hospice & Palliative CareCenter Winston-Salem, NC

“I will be eternally grateful to Carol Henderson, who uggested I write a conversation with my father. As soon as I wrote the last word of “Conversation with Daddy,” my searching for the impossible was over. Seventy-five years of unresolved grief lifted from my shoulders.”–
Helen Walker Webb, author of Old Ladies Can Zipline Too”

*  *  *

Not long ago, I received the following delightful gift of a book in the mail, Out of the Blue, edited by a former UNC Hospital and Hospice workshop participant, Karen Jessee. The book is a collection of her group’s essays and poems.
On the acknowledgement page, Jessee writes, in part: 

“Heartfelt thanks are due to Carol Henderson–writer, sage, and leader of a prompt-driven writing group. Week by week, with carefully curated quotes and poems, Carol created an environment of welcome for our memories. We could come clean on the page, becoming deeply ourselves whether or not we read our work aloud. The writing itself healed us. In this light, The Wise Writers thank Carol for establishing a prompt-writing, memory-reckoning, life-affirming template which ultimately gave birth to our own healing group writing practice.” (For more information on this beautiful book, contact Karen at itsa@mindspring.com)

*  *  *

Writing in a friend’s boathouse.

Some Previous Workshops and Events

Writing Into The Light:  Finding a Path in These Dark Times

As we head into an uncertain future, I want to help create and cultivate community, kindness, and joy. Last January I taught a five-week writing workshop, “Writing into the Light: Finding a Path in These Dark Times,” at the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South.

Last year, I led a series of writing workshops for staff and community members at a Hospice in Dallas, Texas.  I also worked with individual clients and my ongoing writing groups. (See more activities in the sidebar “What Else I’m Doing.”

From Winter 2022 – More Prompt by Prompt: Writing and More Writing (via Zoom)

I originally developed this workshop soon after the pandemic began as a way to help process, through writing, the many changes and disruptions in our lives. We wrote in response to carefully selected prompts–two, maybe three, each week. The workshop was open to writers of all levels and genres.

 Above: Writers from my book Farther Along, who I took on retreat to Red Cloud, Nebraska, the childhood home of author Willa Cather. Here we are on the prairie Cather loved. And below, the prairie at sunset.

Prompt by Prompt: Writing and More Writing

8 sessions (via Zoom) started Thursday, October 7, 2021, at noon. Sponsored by RCWMS

In this generative writing workshop, we wrote in response to carefully selected prompts–two, maybe three, each week. As with all the prompts I offer, you could run with them literally or go wherever your thoughts and feelings took you. We had time for several readings during each session.

Keep on Keeping Track: Writing Toward Resilience in Challenging Times

4 sessions in October 2020 (via Zoom) sponsored by RCWMS. The online weekly writing workshop I taught in the spring ran again this October. This fourth series of live online writing workshops offered a safe place and time to explore our fast-changing world and the rush of feelings that are constantly rising within us during this time of pandemic and social upheaval. Through carefully selected prompts and exercises, I invited participants to pay attention, consider patterns in life that have been disrupted, find hidden gifts, and get in touch with what is essential. We wrote a lot. The workshop was open to those who participated in the spring and to any others who wished to join in October.

Keep on Keeping Track: Writing Toward Balance in Challenging Times (via Zoom)

Sponsored by RCWMS. For three consecutive months (April – June), I offered a live online weekly writing workshop, providing what I trusted was a safe space and time to explore our fast-changing world and the rush of feelings that are constantly rising within us during this time of pandemic and social upheaval. Through carefully selected prompts and exercises, I invited participants to reflect, pay attention, consider patterns in life that are being disrupted, find hidden gifts, and help everyone get in touch with what is essential. I worked with several aspects of craft and encouraged the group to keep a daily written account, even if only a list, a moment, a paragraph. For each session, I provided fresh and topical material.

Writing Toward Healing–at Well of Mercy Retreat Center, in Hamptonville, NC

Postponed indefinitely, due to the pandemic. I was delighted at the invitation to offer this workshop again at the glorious Well of Mercy Retreat Center. It is open to all and meets on one afternoon––followed by dinner and a labyrinth walk––and ends the next morning, followed by llunch. When not writing, participants can enjoy the beautiful setting, hikes, lodging, and meals. And the quiet time.

How to Build Awareness after Loss

I was pleased to be asked to participate in the interview series for Open to Hope, a national organization devoted to helping people deal with death, loss, bereavement, and grief. Here’s my interview, recorded in New York City in July 2018, about writing as a powerful process for healing. And look around on the site–so many helpful offerings.

Writing Toward Resilience–at UNC Hospice Home

(Temporarily postponed) For over a year, I’ve offered Writing Toward Resilience, an ongoing workshop for the UNC Hospice community at the new UNC Hospice Home in Pittsboro, NC. The workshop is open to all who are, or have been, involved in the UNC Hospice community and to members of the Pittsboro community at large. No writing experience necessary. The pandemic has forced a pause, but I look forward to resuming the workshop as soon as possible. “Come to reflect, write, and enjoy a respite from the demands of your day.”

A Writing Workshop with Carol Henderson

Sponsored by RCWMS, the workshop met in a comfortable home with cat, located off Old Erwin Rd in Durham, NC. Using evocative prompts and aspects of craft, we wrote about ourselves and our times. We probed memory, metaphor, and points of view outside our own. Particpants came prepared to write a lot and to leave with deeper insight and fresh perspective on their lives, as well as plenty of material for further inquiry and writing. For women only.

Writing For Resilience at UNC Hospitals

(Postponed) For over 5 years, I offered Writing Toward Resilience, a prompt-based, weekly writing workshop, with co-presenter Heidi Gessner, at UNC Hospitals, Tuesdays, 12 p.m. – 1 p.m. Our  location was in the Cancer Hospital’s Patient and Family Resource Center Conference Room, on the first floor. The workshop was open to hospital staff, patients and their families, and any members of the Chapel Hill and surrounding community looking for a writing respite. No registration required. No writing experience either.

Here’s a podcast featuring Heidi Gessner and me with the folks at Open to Hope, a site full of resources for those who are seeking solace.

Other Workshops (A partial list)

The Art of the Condolence Note

At the end of May, 2019, I offered the Condolence Note workshop as part of a conference for the End–of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC). Over 80 nurses and other care providers from UNC and Duke participated. I will be offering workshops again after the pandemic.

Writing Toward Healing

On March 20 – 21, I offered a writing retreat for anyone living with loss, at a retreat center in Hamptonville, NC.  Well of Mercy.

“What if?” A Writing Workshop

On March 15 – 16,  I led the writing workshop I give every year at the RCWMS. “What If?” was this year’s theme. The event sold out. For information about future workshops I’ll be offering, contact RCWMS.

The Art of the Condolence Note

July 10, 2018. In this workshop we discussed the history of condolence notes and their value for both the recipient and the writer. I demonstrated what makes a note successful and showed examples of do’s and don’ts. Participants each practiced writing a note and left knowing how to tackle this difficult task.

Writing Toward Healing–at First Presbyterian Church in Raleigh

A series of free writing workshops for adults experiencing loss: of a loved one, a way of life, one’s health, a job, or any other grief. The workshop was free and open to anyone in the Triangle Area and beyond. No writing experience necessary. Writing about deep and important matters can improve our immune systems and offer healing perspectives on our lives and struggles. Through writing in this safe environment, we gently reflected, remembered, and reconsidered. We honored our lives and loved ones, reimagined our experiences, and discovered inner resources we had no idea were within us.

Sponsored by First Presbyterian Church of Raleigh and RCWMS.

Lost and Found: Finding Yourself in Your Words

In her book A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit talks about the importance of allowing yourself to get lost–both in life and in writing–in order to become more fully conscious. In this workshop, I led the group in an exploration, using several writing techniques, to illuminate not only things we have lost but also ways in which we have been lost-physically, emotionally, spiritually, on the page, and otherwise. We also wrote about what we had found and left with stories that matter, deeper self-awareness, and a trove of possibilities for further writings.

Reading and Writing Mortality: Reflecting on the End of Life

Two days before she died, in February 2017, Nina Riggs made a request: “Don’t be afraid to read my book.” As a 37-year-old mother of two young children, Riggs began treatment at Duke Hospital for terminal breast cancer. Her memoir, The Bright Hour, beautifully, even joyfully written, helps us redefine what hope means in a situation that is not fixable. In this workshop, my co-loader Jehanne Gheith and I used excerpts from The Bright Hour, along with other prose and poetry, as prompts to reflect on our experiences and personal assumptions about grief and loss. Each week we discussed and wrote about the gifts and challenges of loss and mortality. In the last session, Jehanne worked on Advance Directives with those who were interested. The workshop was open to people of all ages and genders. Co-presenter: Jehanne Gheith, (Ph.D. and LCSW) teaches Russian Literature at Duke University and as a Social Worker specializing in Grief Counseling for Pet Loss and Transitions in Aging, Illness and Wellness. Four Sundays: Jan. 28, Feb. 11, 25, March 4, 2018.

RCWMS 40th Anniversary Celebration

This is what it looked like as RCWMS marked 40 great years on Saturday, October 7 at Durham’s Scrap Exchange.  We had a great turnout and lots of fun at workshops and a potluck.

For my workshop, “Trees as Metaphors for the Self,” we wrote to visual and written prompts in keeping with RCWMS’s theme of roots and branches. What kind of tree would we be if we were trees–and why? What has rooted and unrooted us? Our taproots? What is dead wood that we can prune from our lives? What is blossoming? And what would we like to see blossom? Such a lively and creative group.

The Art of the Condolence Note

Tuesday, July 11, 7 pm at the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South. In this workshop we discussed the history of condolence notes and their value for both the recipient and the writer. I demonstrated what makes a note successful and showed examples of do’s and don’ts. Each participant practiced writing a note and left knowing how to tackle this difficult task. Cost: $10 donation to RCWMS appreciated.

The workshop was full with a wait list. Do let RCWMS know if, post-pandemic, you’d like to offer the workshop in another setting. Contact: RCWMS, 919-683-1236.

Caregivers Summit

On June 13, 2017, in Raleigh, NC, and June 20, in Durham, NC,  I offered journal writing workshops for caregivers at the Caregivers Summit: Navigating the Transitions in Life. This is an annual event so stay tuned for next year’s summit.

Here’s more on the summit in the sponsors’ words:  “Caring for a loved one can be challenging and, at times, overwhelming. Caregivers understand they have a job to do as a full-time member of their loved one’s care team. Caregiving can be shared among you, your family, your case manager, therapist or even your doctor.  The Caregivers Summit provides respite, resolution, and resources as you navigate life’s transitions.”

Here’s my workshop description: Writing in a journal is a useful tool for helping us cope with and make sense of our lives. We can track what matters to us and how our loved ones are doing. We can record important information, jot down memorable moments, and explore our deepest feelings. Evidence-based studies show that writing about what’s important improves the immune system, lowers pulse and blood pressure, and can offer healing shifts in perspective. In this session, we learned easy and accessible techniques for self-expression that can relieve stress and offer personal insights–even if we have very little time. No writing experience necessary.
Presented by Transitions Guiding Lights and Transitions Life Care. Sponsors included the NC Alzheimer’s AARP, the American Cancer Society, and the ALS Alliance.

Weekly Lenten Writing Workshop

I invited people to take on a writing discipline for Lent. We met at White Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, NC. Weekly live meetings and daily prompts helped us find richer meaning in our lives and our faith. The focus was on discernment.

Zooming In: A Weekend Writing Workshop

Every March I teach a weekend writing workshop sponsored by the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South (RCWMS). In the 2017 workshop, March 17-19,  we explored and wrote about some of our most meaningful personal experience, working with memory, point of view, voice, “perhaps-ing,” backstory, and the idea of omission—what’s left out and why. Participants wrote a lot and left with skills and perspective that I trust will serve them well in any writing they undertake. The workshop ended with 13 readings by group members.

Some Workshops from 2016 and Earlier

Staff Development

I taught two workshops in Asheville, NC, at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church. The first was a writing workshop for staff–to give them a chance to connect, be creative, and team-build through prompt writing and sharing. In the evening, I offered “Writing Toward Healing” for congregants living with grief and loss who were seeking new ways to process and feel supported.

Writing Toward Healing (open to congregants)

I presented “Writing Toward Healing,” a 6-week workshop for anyone experiencing loss, at White Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh. The class met 6 Mondays, November 7 – December 12 for one hour. It was not sequential; drop-ins welcome. It was free and open to the public.
From White Memorial’s announcement:
“Carol Henderson’s infant son died in 1982, and writing helped her find a voice for her grief and a path toward healing. Carol has since led workshops for people suffering various kinds of pain, and she will lead us. Learn more about Carol and her workshops.

Writing For Resilience

A prompt-based weekly writing workshop, held weekly, in the UNC Hospitals chapel. The workshop is open to hospital staff, patients and their families,  and any members of the Chapel Hill and surrounding community seeking a writing respite. No registration required. No writing experience either. Sponsored by UNC Hospitals Bereavement Support Services and DooR to DooR.

From Spring 2016: Writing Toward Healing: Free Workshops for Adults Grieving the Loss of a Loved One. Our first Writing Toward Healing series at Carol Woods culminated in at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.

Read the Recent N&O profile featuring Writing Toward Healing series

From the workshop description: “Through writing, we will gently reflect, remember, and reconsider. We will honor our loved ones, reimagine our lives now, and discover inner resources we had no idea were within us.”

Writing Your Life As Story

I taught non-fiction workshops in the spring semester at Duke University’s OLLI Program. Writers brought nonfiction pieces to share with the group. We offered constructive suggestions and I gave prompts and resources at each session.

Writing Toward Healing

In December I finished a series of community writing workshops through Hospice and Palliative Care of Winston-Salem. Participants read from their work and the core group plans to continue meeting in 2016.

Focusing On Form

For the fifth year running I taught in the Focusing on Form program at Meredith College the last week of June. As always, the group was fabulous–their writing extraordinary. Focusing on Form will not be held in 2016. Meredith plans to offer other writing programs, perhaps in the academic year. Stay tuned.

Creating Legacy

I was invited to offer two sessions at The Carolinas Center for Hospice and End of Life Care held at the end of April at the Lake Junaluska Conference Center. What a beautiful and restful setting. My first writing session was “Writing Toward Healing.” and the second was a new workshop, “Creating Legacy Through Writing: For You and Your Loved Ones.” I was happy to offer the hard-working and committed attendees the chance to reflect and write. The sessions I attended were informative and effective–the presenters and attendees inspiring.

Space for Ourselves: A Writing Group for People Living with Illness

 Space for Ourselves: Art project

Tuesday, April 7, we met for our final group session. We wrote to prompts, created a collective poem, and produced art in response to a poignant video “With Grace” by Pamela Quinn.
A quote from Pam: “This disease (Parkinson’s) is so hard,” you say. But in a way it gives us more of each other and it bears other unexpected gifts–creativity, empathy, lack of inhibition. What choice do we have but to accept and try to use these gifts, with grace?

The writing group had a full house for the Flyleaf reading at the end of March and readers got a standing ovation! A lively reception followed. Kudos to the brave and brilliant members of this group, who read from their hearts, telling truths we so seldom address in our sanitized society.

More About:  Space for Ourselves: A Writing Group for People Living With Illness

Writing about deep and difficult aspects of life not only offers fresh perspective and meaning; research shows writing is also good for our health.

I was delighted to co-lead this group with Allison Harrison (left), a community social worker and writer who is herself a bone marrow transplant survivor. She completed her Masters in Social Work and Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she also received Honors in Creative Writing as an undergraduate. Allison has worked on many issues of social justice and healing, including sexual violence prevention and survivor support, HIV prevention education, and support for people with serious and chronic illness.

Allison and I guided participants through a series of writing exercises–designed to help group members turn inward for wisdom, draw on existing literature as inspiration, and gain fortitude.

The group gave a reading at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, on Sunday, March 16th at 3 pm.

A Day of One’s Own: A Writing Workshop

I love offering an annual writing weekend through the RCWMS. You don’t have to be in ministry to participate–most folks who sign up aren’t.In this all-day workshop, we examined and wrote about a single day in the life of a character. In the novel Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf explores a woman’s experience on a day, June 13, as she plans for a party she is giving. We picked a day in our lives (a composite day perhaps) or in the life of a character we are working with, and created—in our own style and voice—a vivid portrait of this character’s inner and outer life. We worked with flash back, idiosyncrasy, and other thought processes as well as with moving a character forward through his or her day. This workshop was open to writers at all levels of experience. We wrote a lot.

Writing Toward Healing

In 2014 I offered another series of Writing Toward Healing Workshops at the Hospice and Palliative CARECENTER in Winston-Salem, sponsored by Project Compassion. The series culminated in a public reading on December Thursday, December 4.

WriteGirls Summer Camp

I loved working with the WriteGirls Summer Camp. WriteGirls is an intensive writing experience for teenage girls, which I created with the help of Biz Presler-Marshall. (This program has ended since all the girls are now in college!)

Recently, I co-led a Group-Leader Training program for Amherst Writers and Artists, in Mebane, NC. I’ve co-led several groups with founder Pat Schneider. If you’re interested in a comprehensive method for learning how to lead prompt-based writing workshops, and for lots of follow-up support, check out the AWA site: click here.

Short Takes on the Self: A Writing Workshop

A weekend writing workshop in Durham, N.C., for writers of all genres and all levels of experience. Through carefully selected prompts, we explored watershed moments, life themes, and the evolution of our sense of self. Plumbing memory, dreams, and point of view, we used what we unearthed to write more deeply, find far-reaching meaning, and create compelling stories and essays. Everyone wrote a lot and left changed by what they had discovered. This workshop is sponsored by the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South.

Farther Along: Writing Toward Reflection, Self-Awareness and Healing

I offered a daylong writing workshop in Winston-Salem, NC. This workshop explored how writing can help manage the pain of grief by awakening new personal awareness and offering transformative shifts in perspective for yourself and others. Designed for community members and professionals touched by grief and bereavement and for anyone who is interested in reflective writing. Sponsored by Wake Forest School of Medicine and Northwest AHEC.

Workshops and Events from 2013

The Powerful Narrative: A Writing Workshop

My husband Bill and I had a terrific group of writers at Wildacres Retreat Center in September for our fourth Powerful Narrative Writing Workshop retreat.

Mining for Gold: Journaling into a Deeper Life

This is my premiere journaling workshop. Here’s the workshop description:

“Keeping a journal is one of the most productive of all methods for reconsidering our world, preserving our experiences, and exploring our deepest selves. On the pages of a journal we can let our inner voices reign while we develop our writing skills. It’s through this kind of “deep diving” into creative projects that we find ways to tell our own life stories. Experience first-hand how journals can help us come to terms with our pasts, discover joy in the present, and transform our futures. Unlocking the full power of this multi-purpose tool, we’ll explore memory, point-of-view, dreams, life chapters, character portraits, poetry, dialogues with aspects of ourselves, and more. We’ll acquire new techniques to enliven our writing with fresh, new ways to view our lives and creative selves. And as always, since the emphasis is on process, not product, come prepared to write.” (Meredith College, June, 2013)

Farther Along: Symposium, Readings, and Panel Discussion

A 2-session symposium held in Salisbury, N.C. Some of the women who are part of the Farther Along Group gathered with participants to write in the morning session and later, for readings and a panel discussion in the afternoon. Phyllis Keels of Salisbury wrote about the symposium: “The exercises, at first blush, seemed easy, but they were so much harder than I thought. Hard in a good way. They helped me process aspects of my daughter’s death in a new and healing way. Thank you for doing what you do. You are making a difference in people’s lives–namely mine.” The symposium was sponsored by The Michael Yang Foundation and hosted by the Literary Book Post. (April, 2013)

Sandra Rogers (left), checked out  Farther Along from her local library five times.  On her left is Beverly Burton, a member of our Farther Along Group, who organized the Salisbury symposium.

Those Who Shape Us

Good narrative writing begins with good characters. Those Who Shape Us: Character Portraits of the Important People In Our Lives, held in Raleigh, N.C., was an intensive, hands-on workout in how to create full-blooded portraits of friends, family members, mentors, and ancestors, those we love, miss, admire––and even those we hold in awe, fear, or even condemn. (April, 2013)

Writing Toward Healing: A Weekend of Writing Workshops

April 12 – 14 in Richmond, Virginia. Sponsored by Noah’s Children

Creating Stories to Keep

A good story, like a good garden, cultivates the “wild permissiveness of the inner life” (poet Stanley Kunitz). In this two-day workshop, Creating Stories to Keep: Unearthing the Secrets of Powerful Narrative, we learned to give voice to our own wild inner lives through a series of craft exercises. The process allows us to pull stories out of us we had no idea were there, and learn to mold them into narratives with energy and momentum. Sponsored by RCWMS.

Selected Events from 2012

Reflective Writing for Psychologists

Care Net Counseling invited us to offer a mini symposium as part of their annual meeting, at Winston-Salem. In attendance were all the psychologists and staff from the organization. Kathy Shoaf, a member of our Farther Along Group who had sought counseling through Care Net, told the 100 assembled attendees about her family’s positive experience working with Care Net. I  led the assembled staff and psychologists in several writing exercises for their own personal enrichment and to use with their clients. We ended the afternoon with a panel discussion featuring members of our group on the role of writing in our healing journeys.

On Saturday, November 10, I led the second of two morning workshop at Hospice of Winston Salem, 9:30 – noon. We’re planning to offer a series of workshops again next fall.

On Sunday, November 11 several of us from Farther Along: The Writing Journey of Thirteen Bereaved Mothers, read at McIntyre’s Books, in Pittsboro, NC, at 2 pm. We had a lively discussion after the reading.

SYMPOSIUM: “Farther Along: Writing Toward Healing

I led this all-day symposium based on principles I’ve written about in my book, Farther Along: the Writing Journey of 13 Bereaved Mothers. It was held at Hospice Support of Fauquier County, in Virginia, Saturday, November 3. Maritta Gotz and Gil Brooker of Hospice Support organized a seamless day in a beautiful venue. We all enjoyed the writing and readings. I was happy to have a combination of funding sources making this symposium possible: it was a “joint production” of Carol Henderson Workshops LLC, Project Compassion, Duke Health and Home Care, Heartland Hospice, Hospice of Wake County, Chapel of the Cross Episcopal Church, and Sandra Jarr. The workshop led participants to explore the ways  writing can help manage the pain of grief–by awakening new personal awareness and offering transformational shifts in perspective in oneself and others. The day-long symposium was intended for both lay people and professionals. (May, 2013).Special thanks to the women from our book, Farther Along, who helped out and sat on a panel about the role of writing in their healing journeys: Betsy Anderson (she lives nearby and initiated the workshop), Dottye Currin, Kay Windsor, and Peggy Clover.

Our generous sponsors included: Fauquier Bank, Randy Minter, Moser Funeral Home, Village Flowers, and Harris Teeter.

Friday-Sunday, October 26-28, 2012
I taught at a writing retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, for a privately invited group of women. We had a glorious time. This weekend the place will be covered in snow.

Saturday, October 6, 2012
I led an all-day “Writing Toward Healing” workshop in Richmond, Virginia, sponsored by Noah’s Children.

Panel Discussion: Farther Along

I moderated a panel discussion at Hospice in Winston-Salem, on the benefits of reflective writing. The panel included members of the writing group I’ve led for the past 10 years–the women featured in my book, Farther Along: The Writing Journey of Thirteen Bereaved Mothers.

I led a similar panel in Charlotte, NC at KinderMourn, then was back in Winston-Salem, at Hospice to lead a morning writing workshop open to anyone suffering the loss of a loved one.

As these workshops continue, I hope you can join us. I will be listing future events here on my website. And be in touch if you’re interested in hosting a writing event in your community.

You might want to pick one of these objects and write about it.

The other night I read my husband a piece by Daniel Jones, the NY Times Modern Love editor.

We had a good laugh and then my guy said: “Are you telling me to shave my head?”

“Well, no,” I said. “I just like the essay.”

Yesterday he shaved his head. “I’m tired of seeing that U-shape of white hair,” he said. “What do you think?”

I hesitated.

“Uh, you don’t like it. That pause said everything.”

I shrugged. “It’s okay, really. I like it.”

When I met him, all those years ago, he had amazing curly thick hair–brown with natural blond highlights and traces of gray around the temples.

What we did to try to save that hair–the sticky ointments, massages, careful cuts.

I saw this poster in a store window and thought. Correct: It’s never too late. Even the act of writing about childhood gives it color. So let’s write about our childhoods and lets think about writing in COLOR.

List of 10 on eating out:

1. I have this thing about lunching out–I’m bad at it. Don’t like dinner out either. And I don’t do breakfast.

2. “No wonder I never got the jobs,” my friend Mary told me the other night–at a reception, not a dinner. “I ordered the wrong food at those lunch interviews, salad. I probably talked while chewing.” Bingo.

3. If you must lunch out, order soup. Liquids work. But if the soups suck?

4. If you want to meet and talk, get together over coffee or drinks.

5. When I have to go out to lunch, I’m checking the clock, starting about 7 a.m. What to wear? When to leave? Do I shower first? I should; I’m nasty. But I want to work out later. Crap. Where to stop what I’m doing? Why do my best ideas percolate when I’m gonna be late if I don’t leave, like, NOW?

6. Even in my desk-job days, I preferred bringing my lunch and wolfing it solo.

7. My friend Betsy never wants to dine with others. “I believe meals should be eaten alone,” she said, “in the middle of the night.”

8. I do like the waitress’s huge white bow in the painting, though.

9. I remember the time my father spat out the Four Seasons red wine he was taste-testing. “Vinegar,” he hissed. I wanted to slide down my chair and vanish under the linen tablecloth.

10. My daughter Colette, at about age 5, ate alone in her room for a year and only the “beige” diet–cheerios, vanilla yogurt, grilled cheese sandwiches on white bread, pasta with butter, peeled pears and apples, banana coins. David Brinkley’s little sister sat alone at a small table, set just for her, under the family’s.

Work in progress: new blog posts will appear here

We had an amazing launch party for Farther Along on Friday, August 10 at the Community Arts Center in Winston-Salem, NC. Over 300 folks showed up and we sold close to 200 books. I talked about the book––we’re calling it a memoir with a mission––and several of the women read. Pictured below are some of the surviving siblings. They had the chance to meet and connect.

Bill and I are back from our annual Powerful Narrative Workshop, at Wildacres Retreat Center, in the stunning Blue Ridge mountains.

This was our third straight year at Wildacres, and we were fortunate to have what’s probably our best group yet.

The four days of the workshop passed as one continual high, with “aha” moments happening it seemed, every few minutes. Our writers, two of whom came all the way from Seattle, all report progress and breakthroughs. (One of them, Fabienne Worth, is pictured above.)

Here’s what one of our participants had to say:

“A true inspiration. Bill and Carol you certainly focused the dynamics and the chemistry that we brought to the workshop. That is an art.”
– Sandy Mason, Asheville, NC

Bill and I were delighted with the group, their responsiveness, and their creativity, and pleased to see them making so many connections both on and off the page. All of which proves to us that The Powerful Narrative really is powerful, and we can’t wait to offer the workshop again.

I continue to write once a month with the WriteGirls. Last summer I led, for the second year, a two-week day camp for the girls, one I think I would have enjoyed much more than the overnight camp I attended at age 12. At that Y camp, I had to be rescued during the swim test. I panicked because I couldn’t see or touch the bottom of the lake.

I would have loved to sit and write the way the girls do at this camp: no backstroke tests, no teams, no lanyards. The girls are eager to produce. They’re working on stories and novels and poems.

I asked them to write quickly about summer. Here are their impressions.

Julia: The air settles heavily on my shoulders, and I swirl to the floor in a tangled heap. The tepid linoleum offers little comfort. “Why me?” I ask the ceiling, thinking what a stupid question. The heat seems to be melting my reasoning as well as my skin. I live in North Carolina, after all, where the weather has mood swings more drastic than those of a 16-year-old girl. I close my eyes to the sun.

Brenna: Lemonade on ice cools with sweet, juicy sourness. Ah, perfect bliss and easy. My mother mixes sugar and powdered lemon in water to create the best summer drink, so thirst-quenching. Who knew that liquid happiness could come from a white plastic container, pre-powdered for our convenience.

Sabrina: Ocean, how I once loved you. Your waves, how cool and refreshing you were to me. But after one story by an author that shall remain unnamed, I no longer go near you. Never again will I be able to enjoy you. Not a pond or a lake, either. Nothing for me anymore but a pool.

Olivia: Outside the heat wilts the trees and the flowers bend their heads under the July sun. But I get to sink into the squishy couch cushions. The cool air of my basement lair surrounds me and I open the first in a large stack of books. Sighing comfortably, I dig in. This is my summer – devoid of heat and sweat.

Anonymous: You go on Sunday. Check-in is from one to five. You get your dorm assignment, your roommate, and your schedule. Then you have your first rehearsal. You’re independent all week, except at night, when your counselors take roll to make sure you’re still alive. Other than that you’re on your own. Freedom and music are what I like best about summer band camp.

It’s great to take a vacation

It doesn’t matter the location

To the beach where the sand castles loom

Only to fall when the waves seal their doom

It doesn’t matter where you go

Just do let your fragile heart grow.

– Eleanor

Sadie: First allow me to describe a tick bite. You reach down absentmindedly to scratch. Your fingers dig into your skin and you sigh with relish. But wait. What’s this? Your fingers have pulled off a wiggling black shape now stuck under your fingernail. You pry it out and kill it, perhaps pulling at its head or flushing it down the toilet. Over the next few days your skin bubbles and blisters. It turns a bright red and soon crusts up and bleeds. Finally it heals, leaving only a puckered pink scar.

Spitting out dark seeds

watermelon tastes so good

red and green and black.

Red and white and blue

fireworks crash in the air

lighting up the night.

– Mary

Kayla: Dancing, playing games, running around, screaming, laughing, sweating, swimming, sliding, drinking pink lemonade, eating ice cream, hamburgers and chips: these are summer parties. But then there are the annoying ticks and mosquitoes that suck your blood and the flies that get in your food. Still, party all summer.

[originally published in slightly altered form in the Chapel Hill News]

Keeping a journal is perhaps the most productive of all methods for reconsidering the world, preserving our experiences, exploring our deepest selves, and developing our writing skills. I’ll be teaching my 5-day workshop, “Mining for Gold,” at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC again in 2012. The workshop is part of the Meredith Summer Institute for women. It’s a great opportunity to learn how to unlock the full power of journaling as a multi-purpose tool for creative development.

Here’s what some of my students said this year about the workshop:  

“Carol Henderson is an energetic yet laid-back, full-of-ideas, expert guide into the world of journaling. What emerges from the journey surprises, delights, challenges the writer in me to observe and record my life, my world, in a  whole new way.” ––Phyllis Mayo, Raleigh, NC, Retirement Community Chaplain

“Carol has had a wonderful impact on my writing life. Her workshop was informative, fun, and supportive. I wrote much more than I thought I would. I feel good about writing again due to Carol’s treasure trove of helpful techniques for accessing the unconscious.” Elyse Krasnogor, Raleigh, NC Psychotherapist

“To go or not to go; that is the question! I went to the workshop with Carol Henderson. I entered the gold mine and discovered nuggets of truth.” Kathy Gluch, Raleigh, NC, former teacher

Each day, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., we’ll explore memory, point of view, dreams, life chapters, character portraits, poetry, dialogues with aspects of ourselves, and more. We’ll acquire new techniques to enliven our writing and help us find fresh ways to view our lives and creative selves. The emphasis is on process-not product—that means we’ll write a lot. For information about the 2012 workshop, email: Ashley Hogan at Meredith <hogana@meredith.edu>

June 8, 2011

I bit into the apple and spit two hard black dots into my small palm. “What are these?” I asked my father. He told me they were seeds and that we could plant them and they would grow into apple trees.
We dug two little holes by the back door and dropped one seed in each. We patted the dirt down, and I sprinkled the area with water from our old metal watering can.

What my father didn’t tell me was that we would be moving in two weeks and wouldn’t be around to watch the trees sprout. Still, this is one of my formative memories during those early years when we moved five times in five years.

Children are fascinated by growing things. Michael Pollan, author of “Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education,” remembers his delight in gardening when he was a little boy: “Cradling the globe of a cantaloupe warmed by the sun or pulling orange spears straight from the sandy soil, these were the keenest of pleasures.”

Growing Healthy Kids, part of the Orange County Partnership for Young Children, is a local program that provides young people and their families garden plots so that they can experience the magic of growing fruits and vegetables. Participating families must have a child under the age of 7. Families are required to work in the garden two hours a week, but “required” is hardly the right word. Many families go every day.

“It’s incredibly satisfying to see the excitement in the faces of the children,” says Maria Hitt, project manager. “They’ll dig up a radish or potato plant and see that there’s something growing underneath. They are so proud that they grew it.”

If you visit a local garden you’ll hear at least three languages – Spanish, English, and Karen, spoken by people from Burma. There are currently 38 families with 77 children involved in the program, ranging in age from 6 months to 16 years old. For these kids, whatever their ages, gardening is a passion. A mother told Hitt recently that her young son “cried because I was too tired to take him to the garden and he so wanted to go.”

Basic lessons in sustainability are a byproductParents who work in the restaurant business bring home discarded vegetable waste to add to the community compost rather than throwing it away.

“And each site harvests rain water to irrigate,” Hitt says. “If it doesn’t rain for a few weeks, we’re in trouble.”

The staff teaches the children how to prepare the foods they harvest.

“My hope is that people are learning how to grow their own food,” Hitt says, “and that they’ll be inspired and able to continue to grow food for their families that’s fresh and organic.”

Kids’ eating habits benefit from the experience. The parents say that when their children help to grow it, they will eat foods they never would have touched before.

One of the gardens is at Carrboro Elementary School, another at the site of the future MLK Park on Hillsborough Street, and the third is at the Duke Energy power plant on James Street.

“It’s tricky to keep everything and everybody organized,” Hitt says, “especially when dealing with three languages, three locations, fickle weather, and our three-person staff is all part-time… And we’re facing funding cuts.”

Michael Pollan writes. “We need to use nature without destroying it, diminishing it. Nature and culture can, in the garden, be wedded. In fact I find in the garden some grounds for hope.”

I’m sure everyone involved in the gardens would agree. And, by the way, they always need volunteers. Contact the group at 967-9091 or online at www.orangesmartstart.org.