"The writing course at LRC has helped me deal with my painful past and to see the potential in me. It has encouraged me to read, write more and to be connected with other people.
My published stories are an educative tool and it promotes the willingness to share our stories. By sharing we create an awareness, we connect and heal as a nation.
Everything is a story and your story is my story, and when it is written it will be preserved for the generations to come."
COURSE:
Lost/Found Memoir Course
REVIEW BY:
Charlotte Mande Ilunga, Cape Town
"It was the vitamin B1 injection that I just needed. Dawn created a safe place to explore hidden demons and her warmth empowered me to be brave."
COURSE:
Lost/Found Memoir Course
REVIEW BY:
JILL ROLFE, Cape Town
Thank you for a most wonderful course.
When I was younger I spent a year trying to wind surf. I tried and tried and the sail kept flopping into the water. A friend kept saying, Laura you won’t be able to do this until you put your foot behind the mast-boom. My brain heard her but I couldn’t figure out what she meant. I kept trying and trying to lift the sail with my foot in-front of the mast-boom. One day, my foot went behind the mast-boom and the sail lifted and I rushed into the ocean where I wanted to go.
Your course was like that day. Before it, I heard what people were saying about writing. I read what people were writing about writing. I entered a few competitions and did well. But, it didn’t feel right.
Now, when an idea springs into my mind, I refuse to use the computer at the first birthing. The perfectionist critiques every word if I use the computer.
I also, through your course, learnt to write what I want to write (not what I think other people want to hear).
I have learnt to use my own life (for this is the only unique source of inspiration there is). I can disguise my life as fiction. So, THANK YOU
REVIEW BY:
LAURA CAMPBELL, Durban
This course helped me to break through the block created by my own diffidence and reluctance, enabling me to find and become confident in the thread I must pursue in order to be true to myself. Dawn created an atmosphere of trust in which the participants felt free to go as far as they wished on this journey into memory and onto the page. The structure of the course was well thought out and effective, both day by day and as a whole. An unusual, highly effective and striking aspect of Dawn’s facilitative work is her insistence that writing, memory and creativity are not simply to be found in the ‘head’, but are lodged in and distributed through the ‘memory’ to be discovered in the body itself. The course was enlightening, stimulating, moving and fun.
REVIEW BY:
JOHN CARTWRIGHT, Cape Town
I attended the Life Writing Course with Dawn Garisch in June 2017. As a pensioner on a limited budget I needed to be a sponsored participant and I am forever grateful for this. The Course was an experience for me of deep growth and of healing that continued working positively in my life and definitely in my writing. The Course and Dawn's facilitating leads one in a very sensitive and yet robust way to interior pathways of memory and connection needing to be explored; listening and sharing with other writers gives one the confidence to go in mind and heart where you may not have ventured before. I have recommended this Life Writing Course many times to many people and will continue to do so.
