Learn to write trauma scenes and develop a narrative based on trauma.

This trauma-informed workshop is designed for writers and memoirists who seek to explore and express personal or witnessed trauma with care, skill, and authenticity. Through guided writing exercises, reflective practices and thoughtful discussion, participants will learn how to portray trauma, healing and post-traumatic growth, and also maintain emotional well-being while writing difficult truths. This workshop is perfect for those ready to tell powerful, honest stories that tap into vulnerability and resilience.

Learning Outcomes

As part of this workshop, you will:

Write about trauma using sensory detail and lived experience to create authentic and engaging narrative scenes.
Understand how trauma shapes memory, story, and identity, and apply this insight to your own writing.
Learn to develop narrative structure, including identifying turning points and moments of change.
Explore post-traumatic growth in storytelling, recognising how meaning, insight, and transformation can emerge in narrative.

Format

This is an in-person workshop with a focus on writing craft through extended writing exercises. It will be held at Queensland Writers Centre. This workshop is suitable for fiction and non-fiction writers of all levels and backgrounds.

About David

Dr David Roland is a psychologist and author of The Confident Performer, How I Rescued My Brain: a psychologist’s remarkable recovery from stroke and trauma, and The Power of Suffering: growing through life crises. David worked as a clinical and forensic psychologist, treating and assessing clients ranging from children to adults, for the Children’s Court Clinic and the Criminal Court. He holds an adjunct lecturer position at Southern Cross University. David is a lead facilitator for the HEART Healing Climate-Related Trauma clinical trial through Southern Cross University. He is currently researching for a new book on ancestral connection through landscape.

For more information about Queensland Writers Centre’s Program of Events and answers to FAQs, please visit: www.queenslandwriters.org.au/program-info

Contact the host of Writing Trauma in Memoir and Story with David Roland