Not long ago—(perhaps you remember? So much has happened since, of course!)—I hung out with Susan DeFreitas, author of the novel, Hot Season, among other work.
Along with writing, Susan is an editor, book coach and workshop leader. She’s getting ready to launch a new round of a course, called Story Medicine, and she is enthusiastic! That’s a great sign, in a workshop leader. I believe in her insights, wisdom and craft. With that in mind, I asked a few questions, and wanted to pass along to you what she’s offering.
Shout out to Susan DeFreitas, for all she brings!
Every author who leads a workshop carries along their particular personality, values, aesthetics and aims. To create a workshop is in many ways akin to writing an essay or a novel, making decisions about form and content, but there is always an unknown element, in the mystery, the conversation, and that is what participants bring, coming together and sharing work.
One of these days—maybe in the near future—I will absolutely teach a workshop again, myself. Lately, I’ve been on hiatus. Talking to Susan, and other writers, reminds me how much I love engaging in the workshop process and supporting students, new writers and experienced authors, as we sort out our words and our world.
For now, I’m mostly working with writers one-on-one, in manuscript critique and feedback—if you’re interested, let me know—but workshop really is a special kind of creative energy.
Here’s what Susan is offering, which sounds amazing:
Me: Your course, Story Medicine, is aimed at helping people create "better stories for a better world," with an explicit focus on social justice. What led you to create this course, in particular?
SF: I created Story Medicine because I knew a lot of writers who seemed to feel powerless in the face of the issues that kept them up at night–like writing fiction was somehow self-indulgent, when there were so many overwhelming problems in the world.
And you know, I used to feel that way myself. As an undergrad, I studied creative writing and the environment (at the college I wrote about in my novel, Hot Season, which you were kind enough to provide a blurb on). By the time I graduated, I’d begun to wonder what kind of difference my art really made.
Like, was someone really going to read a novel and change their mind on an issue as big as climate change? I'm an optimistic person, but even so--the chances of that seemed pretty remote.
In the years since, though, I’ve come to see things differently. All these big problems we face–climate change, sexism, racism, homophobia–are really all cultural problems. And stories are what culture is made of.
So I think, as storytellers, we actually have a lot of power–but only if we take that power seriously. That’s what I designed this course to do: To help people claim their power as storytellers, and take a stand for what they believe in with their art.
Beyond that, I saw a lot of people with their hearts in the right place who really wanted to take a stand with their work–either by diversifying their cast or touching on some political issue in it–but were afraid to. Afraid of “getting it wrong”, and suffering a post-publication nightmare, or afraid of not doing justice to an issue they really cared a lot about.
I created Story Medicine to give writers some really solid strategies for taking a stand in their work, artfully and effectively, so they can go forth into the world with it without fear—not years from now, but now. Because I think we need these sorts of stories now more than ever.
Me: Can you tell people what they might expect, if they were to sign up?
The course teaches a core set of craft techniques I’ve developed over my decade-plus as an independent editor and book coach. These techniques are shared via videos, written lectures, writing exercises, and homework assignments, which cover:
How to write characters of races, cultures, and sexual orientations other than your own without falling into stereotypes, unconscious bias, and cultural appropriation
How to write about injustice, violence, and trauma without simplifying or glorifying it
How to engage with the issues that matter most to you in your work without coming across as preachy or didactic
How to engage with those issues by sharing the truths of your own life
The coolest thing about it, I think, is that these same techniques will give you more emotional power in your fiction, stronger, more complex characters, and stronger, more affecting scenes, across the board.
And while it is a self-paced online course (which takes about 4.25 hours each week for 4 weeks to complete), I've created a Facebook group called the Story Medicine Community where I lead discussions of the course material each month--so if you start the coursework at the beginning of a new month, you can join the cohort for that month in the discussions. (There's also the opportunity to exchange writing assignments and worksheets with other students in the course.)
Me: Is it for people at all stages of the writing practice, or those at the beginning, or...?
If you’re just starting off with the craft of fiction, Story Medicine will give you a solid grounding in the basics—and if you’re a seasoned pro, it will help you achieve more depth, range, and nuance with your work. (And I say this based on experience, working with writers at various levels.)
Regardless of your level of experience, this course will help you write a novel in which sensitivity to historically marginalized groups is "baked in" from the beginning, not tacked on at the end--something I think is super important. Not just because hiring multiple sensitivity readers is expensive, but because doing so helps us to see the world in a more empathetic way.
Me: Can you tell us a little about what a book coach does, and how that work might relate to your teaching?
This course is a natural outgrowth of my work as a book coach, because I specialize in working with those writing socially engaged fiction--meaning, fiction that either centers on or touches on issues of justice or the environment.
A book coach is a story midwife: Someone who works with you to develop a sound big-picture structure for your book, and then is with you, every step of the way, with feedback on each new section of the story as you write or revise it. Clients often work with me all the way from their first draft through to the pitching process, and it's a privilege, to be that "second brain," the creative brainstorming partner for plot holes and character issues but also a critical sounding board, an advocate for the reader when the writer may have lost their way with the story.
I've been doing this work for over a decade now, and I've worked with many amazing writers, but of course there are only so many people I can work with personally. I developed this class so I could serve more writers than I can as a book coach, at a significantly more accessible price point.
Me: Tell me about your journey as a writer. What would you say was a significant turning point in your writing career so far? How have you come to get your work out into the world?
I started writing fiction as soon as I was old enough to read it, and went on to study creative writing at a boarding school for the arts. I studied creative writing in undergrad, and after I graduated, I basically only worked in order to support my fiction-writing habit, until I went on to get my MFA in Fiction. I was always "all in" as a writer and an artist, and everything else (besides, you know, meaningful human relationships, and whatever activism I could manage) came second.
I got started with all this early enough that I thought I'd publish my first book by the time I was 20--in reality, it took me until I was nearly forty to publish Hot Season, with a small press. It wasn't the Big Four deal I'd set my sights on as a kid, but it was a novel I really believed in, a novel about environmental activism and its consequences here in the US, and I was actually blown away by how much it seemed to mean to people--especially the people who saw themselves reflected in it.
And that was a big turning point for me as a freelance editor and coach. Because when I decided to specialize in socially engaged fiction, and help writers who really felt like they had something to say, my "day job" no longer felt secondary to my work as a writer. At that point, they became one and the same.
Me: We've been living through some hard times, globally. How do you keep going, when politics and climate concerns loom so large, so heavy?
Yeah, it's a thing: "Why write when the world is on fire?"
In response to that, I'd just reiterate: We don't have an information problem. (The information that will solve all these big problems we're facing is out there, and it's been out there for years.) We don't have a technological problem, either--"we have the technology." What we have is a collective psychological problem. Which is to say, a cultural problem.
Stories are a form of psychological technology. They're a vehicle through which you can transfer the truths of your heart, and of your lived experience, to the heart of another, via the original (and still the best!) form of virtual reality.
That's not to say that telling a convincing, emotionally affecting, meaningful story is easy. Personally, I think it's one of the hardest things you can possibly do.
But I really do think it's worth the effort. Because stories are the only way to address the problems we have at the root level.
So, my response, whenever anyone asks, "Why write when the world is on fire?": Write because your words are water.
You can find more over here: https://susandefreitas.com/story-medicine/
Hope you’re all doing A-okay, out there in the world!
xo
<3 <3 <3!