Creative Writing Rotterdam

Writing What Hurts

A trauma-informed embodied writing workshop on craft, boundaries, and emotional safety.

How do we write difficult experiences without overwhelming ourselves, exploiting pain, or losing the craft of the scene?

In this 70-minute generative writing workshop, we’ll explore how to approach trauma, grief, violence, and emotionally charged material with care. The focus is not confession or exposure, but craft: distance, detail, voice, structure, aftermath, and restraint.

Through teaching moments, guided freewrites, and low-pressure group reflection, we’ll look at questions many writers face when working with difficult material:

-When does detail serve the story, and when does it become a spectacle?

-How can fiction create emotional truth without reenacting harm?

-What changes when we write from real life, or from experiences beyond our own?

This workshop is suitable for fiction writers, memoirists, poets, essayists, and anyone interested in writing emotionally complex material with more clarity and control. You do not need to write from personal experience to participate. You are welcome to fictionalize, write at a distance, respond to the prompts in your own way, or sit out any exercise.

This is a writing workshop, not therapy. I’ll be holding the space as a writer and facilitator, not as a psychologist or healthcare professional. You will not be asked to share personal experiences aloud, and all sharing is optional.

You’ll leave with short pieces of writing, practical craft tools, and a clearer sense of how boundaries can strengthen difficult work rather than weaken it.

Content note: This workshop includes discussion of trauma, grief, violence, recovery, and emotionally difficult experiences. It will be gentle nudges only in a safe space. All writing prompts and sharing moments are optional.

No writing experience is required. Writers working in any language are welcome. The workshop will be held in English.

Evening Flow

18:30 Optional shared dinner, pre-booking required

19:00–19:30 Craft Chat, bring your writing questions

19:30–21:00 Guided workshop

21:00 Closing notes

CultureHub Rotterdam

€12,50 workshop

+ €12,50 optional communal meal
Seats are limited.

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Host or Publisher CultureHub