The Italian Diaspora Studies Writing Seminar -Heritage and Memory 2019 is full. We heartily thank the many people who have expressed interest in the program, and the ones who are signed in our waiting list. Those who are left outside this year will be given priority in the edition of 2020.

Welcome on board to our 20 wonderful participants from Australia, Canada, Ghana, Israel, Italy, UK, and USA. We are truly looking forward to our creative time together in the South of Italy. It will be memorable.

A message from Maria Gillan

I’m pleased that so many of you have signed up for the writing workshop in Calabria. I can’t wait to meet all of you and collaborate with you on the new work which you will create in the sessions. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve ever written before or whether you have a long list of publications. My workshop is intended to open you up and give you the courage to tell your own stories and explore your memories. It also doesn’t matter to me whether you write poems, prose, or memoir. Form is less important than your ability to tell the truth and to tell it straight. This will be a generative workshop during which you will write and afterwards, share what you’ve written. I hope by the end of the week, you will have a portfolio of writing that will give you a start on a manuscript. I believe we all have stories to tell and that a workshop gives us the opportunity to put aside fear and to depict the world and the people we love with specificity and clarity. I want this workshop to be a safe place in which you can write without fear of criticism or derision. I want you to produce work that you will be proud of having written. I’m so glad that you have decided to join me on this journey into ourselves in order to unearth our stories, memories, and the feelings that they evoke.

Please bring a pen, notebook, and the willingness to let go. If you write more easily on a laptop or iPad, you may bring those as well.