Writing into Loss: Two Journeys through Grief

Novelist Carol Japha and poet Cathy Wittmeyer both write about grief and the profound, wrenching anticipation of loss. So they are also writing about love–the fear, and the actuality, of losing someone we love.

In relying on imagination to tell their stories, Carol and Cathy share a distinctive, original approach to writing about grief and loss. Where Carol uses her imagination to fill in blanks of the real past, Cathy uses her imagination to paint a future that is only a real probability.

Carol: I write about a past that was erased from my memory. I needed to imagine in order to capture it. Writing transported me to a place where I could think about and feel things that had been pretty much forbidden, or that at least I did not have access to. Of course writing, especially writing about grief, is hard, but it can also be liberating.
Cathy: It is possible to anticipate grief, to feel a deficit bone-deep before the void presents itself. I had to use language to tackle issues that are hard to accept and in that processing, that condensation, some acceptance is discovered. Playing with forms and line length, I push the limits of my three themes: imminence, questioning, and sufferance, giving each just enough space on the page.

Join Carol and Cathy as they read from their work and discuss the process of transforming their experiences with words.

Carol Japha is the author of Mapping Eden: A Novel. Cathy Wittmeyer has a new poetry collection called Shatter & Bloom.

For more about Carol and Cathy:
https://www.caroljapha.com
https://cathywittmeyer.com