Restorative Narratives: Care, Power and Visibility

Join LitArts RI for an evening of reflection on the power of narrative to cultivate care in our lives and communities. On Wednesday, Sept 13th at 7pm, local writers, educators, healthcare professionals, patients and caregivers are invited to explore the intersections of care and the narrative arts with Massachusetts General Hospital Writer-in-Residence Suzanne Koven and teaching artists Corinne McKamey and Victoria Restler. Throughout the evening, participants will use multiple genres and styles—personal narratives, artistic renderings and poetic prose—to support healing in their own lives and build empathy across our systems of care. This online writing and arts-based workshop will examine care as a complex process that is relational, liberatory and healing while also invisible, limiting, raced and classed. Participants will develop their own counter narratives and visions of radical care.

Free and open to the public.

Registration available via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/restorative-narratives-care-power-and-visibility-tickets-696168878857

About the Facilitators

Suzanne Koven practiced primary care internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital for over 30 years and now serves as MGH’s writer-in-residence. She also teaches in the Media, Medicine, and Health program at Harvard Medical School. Her essay collection, Letter to a Young Female Physician, was published by W.W. Norton & Co. in 2021.

For over 30 years, Dr. Corinne McKamey has created and led collaborative learning communities in K-12, out of school time, and university settings. In positions at Harvard University, Wellesley College, and Rhode Island College, she has used narrative and arts-based research methods to understand the intersections of identity, context and educational caring. McKamey is an engaged learning and retention consultant.

An interdisciplinary artist, educator and scholar, Victoria Restler has worked in schools and community spaces for two decades at the intersections of art-making and social justice. Victoria’s first book, “What do you do that can’t be measured? On Radical Care in Teaching and Research” was published in 2023 with Brill’s Doing Arts Thinking Series. She is Associate Professor and Founding Director of the Youth Development Master’s Program at Rhode Island College.

This activity is made possible in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Accessibility

LitArts RI is actively committed to cultivating a community that values and reflects diversity, equity and inclusivity and to providing programming that is accessible to all attendees. Please let us know about any accommodations we can make to allow you to participate fully in this event.