Writing from Experience by Pat Kennedy

LUCY BURDETTE: I'm particularly excited about today's guest--you'll see why. Pat is one of my good buddies in the Friends of the Key West Library, and she is an old friend of Hallie's. When I heard she had taken Hallie's writing class at the Studios of Key West, I asked (begged) her to blog about it. Welcome Pat!

PATRICIA (PAT) KENNEDY:  Hello to all you fascinating Reds!  It has been quite awhile since I’ve chimed in here – July of 2022 to be precise when I complained about the never-ending presence of “piles” at my home -– papers, shoes, electronic devices, grocery bags, stuff.  Since the piles never seem to diminish, I just gave up and moved to Key West for the winter.  

I spend my time in sunny Florida participating in and supporting the arts. Recently, I participated in a “Writing from Experience” workshop at The Studios of Key West, led by Jungle Red’s Hallie Ephron. I had never taken a writing workshop being somewhat shy about sharing my work with strangers – and Hallie too. I’m an amateur and she’s definitely a pro. 

I had an interesting childhood as both my parents were profoundly deaf so we four siblings (none deaf) grew up in a signing household.  Recently my sisters and I were interviewed by StoryWorth on their national podcast about the challenges of growing up in a different family life. It was an emotional experience for us. More so when we heard the final 18-minute podcast.  I can’t listen to it without getting weepy.  

This experience rekindled my desire to write more about my parents – especially our mom.  Our dad was tall, handsome, gregarious – a real star shine kind of guy.  Our mother was shy and very angry.  And she had good reasons to be that way. We learned by dribs and drabs how challenging her life had been at a school for the deaf run by the Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Louis, Missouri. And the challenges of being a deaf mother with un-sympathetic in-laws who lacked confidence in her ability to be a suitable “mother.” She fought back.

As Hallie said to me, “you have a deep well of experience to write about.” My reluctance has been how to write about HER experience but write in a way that reflected her lack of traditional English composition skills. She was an American Sign Language user so her English was rudimentary. 

As you probably know already, Hallie is a superb teacher.  And a kind one too.  Fourteen of us produced short essays for each of the three classes – some were absolute stunners which left me intimidated. I passed on reading aloud during the first and second sessions but knew I had to come up with something for the third. Hallie’s teaching and comments about my classmates’ work were precise and spot on. She emphasized the importance of “voice” and how it drives the whole trajectory – and authority – of a piece of writing.  “It must be authentic. Obviously if one is writing about one’s experience, then one must use the first-person voice.”

I had been trying to write about a life-changing experience my mother had as a four-year-old child, but I was using third person omniscient. I could see that the piece was stilted and false, but I didn’t know how to fix it.  Suddenly, with Halie’s simple “change the voice” instruction, I saw another way to write the story but as I experienced it.  An hour later I was doing final edits and ready to read to the class. My sisters and I are now moving forward on collaborative pieces to add to this first piece. 

If you want to hear the StoryWorth podcast that so influenced me to get going on writing, here is the link.

Are any of you writing teachers?  Any pearls you want to share with us?  And it would be fascinating to hear from you, dear readers, how a teacher has changed or improved your writing.  

Patricia Kennedy is a retired marketing consultant for healthcare organizations. She lives in Plymouth, MA and Key West during the winter.