Empathy and Authenticity

We’ve moved online! All workshops will be conducted through Zoom, an interactive platform that allows you to participate in exercises and contribute to group conversation in your workshops. You’ll receive an email with a Zoom link to your workshop 5pm the day before the workshop.

Member Price: $65
Deadline to Register: September 11, 5 pm
Instructor: Summer Dawn Reyes

How do you write a character you have nothing in common with? On the flip side, how do you write authentically about yourself? In this workshop, we’ll learn how to both write characters of other backgrounds in a respectful, empathetic way and write about themselves with real authenticity. We will leave the workshop with a short monologue, poem, or prose piece inspired by a real person’s story (either their own or a partner’s), and receive a character development worksheet we can use to guide future writing projects.

Summer Dawn Reyes is the founder and director of In Full Color (IFC), an organization that empowers women of color through education and the arts. IFC has received two commendations from the New Jersey State Assembly and the Jersey City Arts Council’s Performing Arts Award. Summer is also the co-founder of 68 Productions and the winner of the Permanent Career Award in Literature from the Society of Arts and Letters-NJ and the N.J. Governor’s Award in Arts Education. You may also know her as an events coordinator, teaching artist, arts journalist, writer, and actress. Visit InFullColor.org or follow her @infullcolorus_