WORKSHOPS

VIRTUAL, LIVE, SMALL-GROUP, PROMPT-STYLE EXPRESSIVE WRITING WORKSHOP

The iRise Above Foundation has partnered with Wildfire Journal & Writing Community to offer the young breast cancer community a unique six-week prompt-style expressive writing workshop, "From Pain to Whole: The Transformation of Owning Your Story.”

Want to write about your breast cancer experiences but aren’t sure where to begin? Maybe you love writing but struggle to find the time to focus. Perhaps you don’t write now but want to try. A prompt-style writing workshop is perfect for you. In this six-week workshop series, we’ll write away some of our stress — and find healing over time by using writing as a tool to find meaning and stay grounded when things feel fraught with uncertainty. You’ll make new friends and fill a notebook along the way, even if you don’t consider yourself as a writer. 

This workshop was created specifically for the iRise Above community to come together and write as a group. 

This workshop will focus on healing through writing, which involves accepting our story and making sense of it, exploring honest feelings, using words to heal, and adopting a positive outlook. Our stories didn't start the day we were diagnosed (or re-diagnosed) — rather, they have been ongoing since birth, with cancer being just one part. The real stories we need to tell are about how we live in the face of, or because of, the unpredictable circumstances life throws our way, including cancer. We are passionate about helping people use writing as a tool to feel empowered within their stories and to connect with others.

Hi! I’m April Stearns, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Wildfire Journal & Writing Community.

A lifelong writer, I landed my first memoir-based magazine cover story at just 16. From there, I worked for my college newspaper, “City on the Hill” at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and then went on to work for my local newspaper, The Sentinel in Santa Cruz, CA, after graduation. I loved the smell of the printing press and the excitement of the reporters’ bullpen! But before long, I was attracted to other writing jobs “over the hill” from Santa Cruz in Silicon Valley during the early 2000s tech boom.

In 2012, amid this budding career, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer at age 35. Four years later, while struggling to “go back to normal” and find others in similar situations, I took a leap of faith and launched Wildfire Journal as a platform for younger people to share and read breast cancer stories.

Since 2016, I’ve had the privilege of guiding hundreds of writers through the Wildfire writing workshops — from the fun, free monthly pop-up to the heartfelt, expressive Sparks series focused on writing, and the rich memoir incubator Fire Starters — and I have published more than 50 issues of Wildfire Journal.

I firmly believe that helping others tell their stories can dramatically transforms a traumatic cancer experience into an empowering one— and reveals a life full of meaning. I live with my husband and teenage daughter in Santa Cruz. Although I love town life after growing up on an apple orchard, I also enjoy escaping the hustle and bustle whenever I can to hike in the woods with my 10-year-old border collie/Australian shepherd, Skye. Still, writing memoir remains my purest, most treasured escape.

This is a prompt-style personal narrative writing workshop, which means April will bring bits of inspiration to spark your imagination and jog your memories. Then we'll set a timer and write silently together. We'll alternate between writing sprints with discussion and sharing (optional!).

No writing experience is needed. We won't critique each other's work. This workshop aims to help you generate fresh content and experience healing through writing about your life. Many of our prompts will relate to our shared experience of being diagnosed with breast cancer as a young person. Still, there's no requirement to write about your cancer if you don't feel ready or if it's not what you want to process with writing during our time together. Write whatever comes naturally to you!

Our workshop is hosted on Zoom; here are some tips to ensure it runs as smoothly as possible.