Class Description
This seminar will be co-taught by Vanessa Mártir and Katie Bannon. Please visit our Instructors page to read more about Vanessa and Katie.
GrubStreet’s Your Body, Your Story series focuses on nonfiction writing about pregnancy, abortion, and miscarriage through a reproductive justice lens. Classes in this series are being offered at reduced prices, or at no cost. Full scholarships are available, and a portion of the tuition will be donated to We Testify, a nonprofit organization that supports abortion storytellers. Classes in the Your Body, Your Story series will also feature guest speakers from We Testify who will share wisdom from their experiences of telling their abortion stories. After the series concludes, all participants will be invited to submit writing to an anthology that GrubStreet will put out, in order to increase the visibility of these crucial stories.
Writing Abortion
In this 4-hour seminar, we will read examples of published abortion stories, respond to writing prompts that will help us tell our own stories, and share our work in small breakout groups. This class welcomes anyone who feels ready to write about their personal experience(s) with abortion. Writing in this class can incorporate the whole reproductive continuum–pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage–but the focus of our discussion will be on writing about abortion. Hybrid-form essays that incorporate poetry and nonfiction are also welcome in this class.
Other Classes in the Your Body, Your Story Series
Your Body, Your Story: Writing Pregnancy, Abortion, and Miscarriage (AM multi-week, starting 10/20)
Your Body, Your Story: Writing Pregnancy, Abortion, and Miscarriage (PM multi-week, starting 10/20)
Your Body, Your Story: Writing Pregnancy and Delivery (Sunday, 10/30, from 12pm-4pm)
Your Body, Your Story: Writing Miscarriage (Sunday, 11/13, from 12pm-4pm)
Your Body, Your Story: Writing Reproductive Justice (Sunday, 12/4, from 12pm-4pm)
Class Format
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. About 15 minutes before your class is scheduled to begin, you'll receive an email from your instructor with a link to join the class meeting!
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. About 15 minutes before your class is scheduled to begin, you'll receive an email from your instructor with a link to join the class meeting!
Zoom Participation:
Students are not required to turn their camera on, but are encouraged to participate any way they feel comfortable through functions such as the live chat, emoji reactions, and unmuting the microphone. Learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
We ask that instructors enable closed captioning and send a transcript of the session after class. You can also enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting. If your instructor forgets to send the transcript, just send ’em an email!