Writing workshop invites women to express themselves

LAKEVILLE — This May, a new opportunity for women to express themselves arises with the start of “Writing from Your Heart,†a writing workshop orchestrated by Sharon Charde. The workshop will be held at the Community Mental Health Associates’ Northwest Center for Family Services on Main Street in Lakeville, starting Tuesday, May 19.

Charde has been working with women in a number of capacities for most of her adult life. She has taught at a girl’s high school, volunteered at Touchstone (a residential treatment program for troubled girls in Litchfield) and at The Hotchkiss School. In addition, she has led writing workshops at Touchstone, Hotchkiss and in her own home, where she hosts writing retreats for women every Sunday.

She has also been a therapist with a private practice here in the area, and she was a family counselor at the Northwest Center years ago, when it was still called the Mental Health Center.

Charde’s new writing program is offered by the Northwest Center. Robert Muro, the center’s new director, said he is “delighted to be part of making this opportunity available to the community by this collaboration†with Charde.

This program will be the most publicly accessible of Charde’s recent ventures. Charde is offering her first 10-week session starting May 19, ending July 21, and it is open to women of all ages. Charde hopes to have back-to-back 10-week sessions. The group will meet once a week, Tuesdays from 5 to 7 p.m., with a maximum of 10 participants. The 10-week session costs $250.

In her years of experience, Charde has come to favor a certain style of writing workshop. It is characterized by writing from a prompt, often just a single word, or a poem, a picture or an object.  The writing is done without planning, deliberating or discussion. Writing is immediately followed by reading and listening; everyone shares, everyone listens, no one comments, asks questions or analyses. Charde stresses that this is not a workshop geared toward critical writing skills and emphasizes instead the skill of writing freely.

Despite her past as a family therapist and her training as a counselor, Charde’s writing workshops are not therapy sessions. Charde describes them as time to reflect. She strives to create a safe, judgment-free environment conducive to what she calls, “writing from the heart.â€

The group is open to writers and non-writers alike; there are no requirements of writing experience. In Charde’s hands, writing from a prompt becomes an act of freedom and self-discovery. Her focus is to get everyone simply to write, without self-analysis or agenda. The goal is to allow women the time and space to relax and reflect without judgment, without the pressure of a given form, a grade or right and wrong answers.

More than 20 years ago, Charde found herself at a junction in her life that called for change. It started with a writer’s workshop one New Year’s day and flourished into a new lifestyle, one in which writing was elemental.

After reading Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones,†Charde sought the author out and through her was introduced to the practices she has since shared with so many women in a number of communities. Goldberg brought the idea of uninhibited writing paired with deep, silent listening to Charde, who calls it one of the greatest gifts she has ever received.  

Charde has been sharing this gift with others for the last 17 years, and now, through CMHA’s Northwest Center, the experience is more accessible than ever. For information, contact her at sharoncharde.com or sharchar@sbcglobal.net. The CMHA Northwest Center is at 315 Main St.,  860-435-2529.