What family stories do you carry with you? What story do you tell over and over? What landscape do you cherish the most? One of the deepest human instincts is to tell our life stories, to figure out who we are and what it means to be human. This interactive workshop led by Maura MacNeil explores how the landscapes of our lives shape the stories that we tell. Participants explore the themes of family, memory, and place through sample narratives and a series of short writing exercises, gaining a deeper awareness of how their stories can preserve personal, generational, and communal history.

It is suggested that participants bring paper and pens or a laptop for short writing exercises, though paper and pens will be provided if you forget.

Biography: Maura MacNeil is a writer, editor, and teacher. She is the author of the poetry collections: A History of Water, Lost Houses, and This Last Place. Her poetry, prose, and critical writing has been published and anthologized in numerous publications over the past three decades including: Penning the Pandemic: An Anthology of Creative Writing from the Beginning of the Covid Era; Mud Chronicles: A New England Anthology; Poet Showcase: An Anthology of New Hampshire Poets; and Voices from the Frost Place Volume II. In addition, her poetry has been translated into Mandarin and published in China as part of the Pastoral Poets movement that uses poetry and literary scholarship to bridge the two continents. For over two decades she has taught writing at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire.