Writing Motherhood: A Rochester Reads Master Class

a one-session master class with Sally Bittner Bonn

Mothering is complex: exhausting, exhilarating, lonely, hysterically funny, ambivalent, ripe with loss, maddening, bursting with love. Telling our stories is how we make sense of our lives, how we hold memories, how we celebrate, how we grieve, how we wrestle with what we don’t understand. This generative workshop will offer several exercises to access mothering memories from different angles. Excerpts from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass we will spark inspiration and create entry points for new writing. Participants will leave with drafts or beginnings of at least three new pieces.

All mothers are welcome—adoptive mothers, biological mothers, mothers of young kids, mothers of adult children, mothers who have experienced loss, step-mothers, foster mothers—all the mothers!

This program is associated with the 25th Anniversary of Rochester Reads. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s memoir Braiding Sweetgrass was the 2021 Rochester Reads selection.

Sally Bittner Bonn is a writer, teaching artist, and mother, and was a student in the very first SummerWrite camp. She is delighted to have come full circle as Director of Youth Education (since 2009), and loves creating spaces for youth to find and use their voices. Sally is a graduate of the Lighthouse Writers Workshop Book Project (2023-25 cohort) under the mentorship of Anna Qu. She is at work on a memoir about parenting, disability, and gratitude. Sally lives with her husband and son and spends her rare spare moments baking bread, taking long walks, and watching the clouds.