Saved by a Story: Writing workshops empower voices and build connection | The Argonaut
Photo credit: Chris Mortenson
Saved by a Story was featured in The Argonaut and Pasadena Weekly for our 12th Storytelling Salon, STILL HERE. Read the article below:
The seed for Saved by a Story, a nonprofit that hosts free community writing workshops, was planted while Kathy Katims was reading an article about foster youth. One of the distinct pains that people in the foster care system experienced was the absence of somebody to hold their story: riding a tricycle at the age of two, making a friend at five and playing baseball at 11.
In graduate school, when Katims was asked to create a project connecting her field of study, writing, with social justice, she knew exactly where to start.
“I had an idea that if I gathered a group of foster youth and offered a prompt writing workshop, people could hold their narrative for themselves and also share it,” said Katims.
Since hatching her project 10 years ago, Katims has conducted workshops with women in recovery, teens in recovery, parents raising neurodiverse children and senior citizens. Most recently, she led workshops for wildfire survivors from Pasadena, a group that included her after losing her home.
Some of the prompts included writing about their earliest memory or an adult who mattered to them.
“In the process of sharing, they realized they were not alone,” she added. “There’s this whole quilt, a tapestry of humanity, that comes together. The power of getting the story to the page and putting it out there to the world is a potent experience.”
“The experience was so overwhelming, there was so much to do, working with insurance, trying to get a rental,” said Katims. “The wildfire workshop was a chance to set aside the doing and settle into processing the experience.”
“In the first workshop, the prompt was to imagine that a home has a voice, and it tells its story,” she continued. “They would tell the story of what had happened to them through their home. As people read, I think they surprised themselves by what they found. To do that in a group resonates with other people. They feel into the experience more. By the end, there were people who were neighbors and had passed by each other in the street for 20 years, but now they knew each other in a deeper way.”
Initially, Saved by a Story would raise money to donate to other nonprofits. Throughout the years, it has contributed around $200,000 from hosting Storytelling Salons, which are centered around themes, and paid writing workshops. Two years ago, Katims realized that Saved by a Story was its own ecosystem, and she filed and received nonprofit status.
Currently, she employs two facilitators: One conducts the Intergenerational Writing Workshops at the Wende Museum in the Cotsen Learning Center on the 2nd floor of the Glorya Kaufman Community Center in Culver City, and the other runs the Senior Writing Workshops in Studio City. Katims hopes to hire more facilitators so they can offer more free community workshops.
“Writing is magic,” she said. “It takes you to hard places and joyous places, too.”
Katims believes that one of the secrets to the success of her workshops is that when the participants circle up after writing, they can choose to share or not, without judgment.
“Without pressure, it offers people more freedom on the page,” said Katims. “At a certain point, people want to be known.”
To support her claim, Katims shared a story. One day a woman showed up to her workshop with her coat zipped over her head. She sat in her chair while people wrote, and she listened as they shared. A time or two later, she began to write. More time passed and she asked if she could just share with Katims. Finally, about two months later, she started to share with the group.
“Everybody at their own pace and when they are ready,” assured Katims. “95% of the time people begin to share even if they didn’t initially.”
Another highlight of the workshops for Katims is watching the participants bond.
“People who share over time get connected and become friends,” she said. “One woman in my senior writing group in the Palisades told me that she had no friends. Two years later and after we lost our town, she is the epicenter.”
The Palisades group now meets in Westwood, and Katims is in the process of starting up a wildfire workshop in the Altadena area.
The next Storytelling Salon is titled “Still Here,” honoring the Palisades and Altadena communities, and will take place on Nov. 1 at BLANKSPACES in Venice. Six 10-minute stories will be read bookended by appearances by KCRW deejay Chris Douridas, indie musician mehro, playwright/screenwriter Jessica Goldberg, comedian Al Madrigal and singer-songwriter Priscilla Ahn.
“This is our 12th or 13th salon,” Katims said. “The salons bring together people with diverse voices. We get to hear lots of different takes on a specific theme. We try to offer the community heart, humor and hope and capture some of what’s happening in LA.”
