Join the Somerville Public Library and writer Gila Lyons for a FREE writing workshop on motherhood and time.
One of the best barometers of time is children, they make its passing visible with how dramatically they change from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. But children also bend and distort time, rendering it meaningless, infinite, and incalculable. Christine Smallwood writes, “Time works differently after you have a child. What was once a steady beat suddenly moves at crazy, uneven speeds. Children fill up time that you didn’t know was empty. They are clocks with all the gears on display; you watch the time pass in them.”
In this workshop, we'll explore how having children has changed our sense of time. We will read and discuss relevant published work; write our own pieces guided by writing prompts, exercises, and freewrites; and will build community through optional sharing of writing in partners, small groups and the group as a whole.
This workshop is open to anyone who identifies as a mother.
Space is limited, so please be sure to register in advance!
About the Facilitator:
Gila Lyons' writing has appeared in The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Healthline, Vice, Vox, The Huffington Post, Salon, Poets & Writers, and other publications. Her pieces have been anthologized in books and collections, most recently in ABOUT US: Essays from the Disability Series of the New York Times, (W. W. Norton, 2019). Gila holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University and has been teaching writing and literature in colleges, universities, and to adults for the past decade. Links to published work can be found at www.gilalyons.com.
Questions? Contact Kerry at keodonnell@somervillema.gov
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Somerville Arts Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
