“We also know this: hope and grief can coexist, and if we wish to transform the world, we must learn to hold and to process both simultaneously. That process will, as ever, involve reaching for community.”
— Let This Radicalize You, Chapter 8: “Hope and Grief Can Coexist”
NYWC’s Work Rooms are spaces in which participants gather for an hour to work together on a writing project of their choice silently. Join our Program Manager Calley Anderson, next Wednesday, December 13, for MAKING SPACE, a special edition of Work Room that draws from Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba’s book Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care (Haymarket Books, 2023).
In this 90-minute session, Calley will guide the group through a series of prompts that include letter writing, playlist curation, an excerpt from Nnenna Freelon’s Great Grief podcast, and material from the Let This Radicalize You workbook to help us acknowledge the grief and truths we have experienced over the past year—or past few years. By using writing as a tool to recenter ourselves, we’ll create time capsules that help us understand the current moment and carve out space for future reflection and hope.
While this workshop will be facilitated and experienced in a collective space, we’ll work individually, and largely silently, as we take time to process our journeys through grief and hope, bolstered by the presence of others. Participants do not need to have read Let This Radicalize You to attend—nor do they need to identify as writers. All we ask is that you come willing to use writing to engage meaningfully with yourself and others.