51精品视频

Notebook, pencil, coffee cup and keyboard on a rainbow background
Pride Week at 51精品视频

A writing workshop for LGBTQIA+ elders builds community and records history

Tags
  • Arts and Humanities
  • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Erik Schuckers, a staff member of 51精品视频鈥檚 , decided years ago to teach a writing workshop for LGBTQIA+ elders, but first, he wanted to turn 50.

Surviving the early years of the AIDS epidemic gave him a sense of responsibility, he said, to carry the stories of those who are no longer with us.

Once he reached that milestone, he began hosting In Our Own Write, a virtual bi-weekly gathering of local LGBTQIA+ older adults who chronicle their lives in poetry and creative nonfiction.

鈥淚t鈥檚 easy for us, as we get older, to feel invisible, especially in the gay community,鈥 said Schuckers. 鈥淲e begin to feel that our stories don鈥檛 matter, but I鈥檓 lucky enough to work on a college campus, and I know there are younger people who want to learn about our history and culture.鈥

The workshop, now in its second year, received start-up support and funding from 51精品视频鈥檚 . The 2022 workshop began in February and ends in May, culminating with a public reading and the of the participants' best work.

Mary Beth Guzzetta, one of the 12 writers in this year鈥檚 workshop, relishes the connections she鈥檚 making through In Our Own Write.

鈥淚'm at the beginning of the Gen X generation, a generation that has lived through the entire spectrum of what it meant to be completely closeted [then] to marry publicly, and that's an amazingly huge jump to take in 30 years,鈥 she said.

Though she is grateful for the gains LGBTQIA+ individuals have made both politically and culturally, she said she misses the tight-knit community that was necessary for survival when she was a youth.

鈥淲e've traded an intense sense of family and community for the ability to live freely in the world, and I wouldn't trade that back. But I have more than a small amount of nostalgia for that time and for the connections I had in the gay community. This workshop is an opportunity to be with other people who have the same sense of loss and gratitude,鈥 said Guzzetta.

The features readings, writing prompts and 鈥 fuel for the writers鈥 creative engines. So far, workshop learners have explored how memories can inform a story鈥檚 structure and the influence of place on writing.

For Schuckers, holding space for elder LGBTQIA+ writers is essential to preserving the community鈥檚 history for younger generations.

鈥淥ur history is not taught in schools, and even if you learn about important elements of it, like the Stonewall uprising, you may only gain an idea of the facts. Yet the feeling behind these events is also important,鈥 said Schuckers, adding, 鈥渨hen it's done right, creative writing lets people feel what that experience was like. It connects readers on a different level; it connects them emotionally, psychologically and viscerally in a way that reading a dry history of something will not.鈥

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鈥 Nichole Faina