The effect of writing class.....

by allison langer, student and co-producer of writing class radio

i heard something last night in writing class that sent my mind spinning!

it was after a comment inessa made while looking for the meaning in jahn’s story. jahn wrote about a good friend who vanished recently. this friend was also a roommate and someone with whom jahn had a close connection and history. we, as listeners, wanted the story to explain why jahn was not more upset by his friend’s disappearance and why he was writing this story now.

inessa said, “i would like this narrator to ask himself to really look at his coping mechanisms for dealing with unreliable people in his life.”

i felt my throat tighten and my eyes well up. i thought, holy shit, what are my coping skills for dealing with the unreliable people in my life? are they healthy coping skills? by my reaction, i was pretty sure they were not.

i drove home wondering if my relationship with my mom has caused me to push men away; choose men i thought i could save; or retreat from love entirely.

inessa’s feedback to jahn kept me up late last night. writing class is like that. listening to other people’s stories, editing them and writing stories of my own brings up stuff. buried stuff. i know class also helps me grow and change and evolve. i hope that’s what’s happening now.

 

allison langer

Allison Langer is a Miami native, University of Miami MBA, writer, and single mom to three children, ages 12, 14 and 16. She is a private writing coach, taught memoir writing in prison and has been published in The Washington Post, Mutha Magazine, Scary Mommy, Ravishly, and Modern Loss. Allison's stories and her voice can be heard on Writing Class Radio, a podcast she co-produces and co-hosts, which has been downloaded more than 750,000 times. Allison wrote a novel about wrongful conviction and is actively looking for an agent. Allison is currently working on a memoir with Clifton Jones, an inmate in a Florida prison.