Register 59 Seats Remaining

NEA Big Read 2025--Writing Our Families/Writing Ourselves

Adults can record Florida stories for WLRN's Storyteller!

Join our writing workshop using prompts from the Smithsonian Institution! Includes free-writing, storytelling, exercises, handouts, and recording your Florida story for WLRN's Public Storyteller.

Writing Our Families/Writing Ourselves

From the genes in our bodies to the stories in our minds, we literally ARE our families. This lively, informative workshop brings together family and personal history, drawing on established prompts from the Smithsonian Institution that you can use both to learn about ancestors and to reflect on how you relate to living relatives. You'll enjoy a free-writing session, off-the-cuff storytelling, and exercises and handouts on how to create stories out of brief anecdotes, how to bring your past to life, and more. Whether you're writing memoir, fiction or anything else, it all starts with a good story. And you've got more than you think.

PLUS: You'll have an opportunity to record your Florida-based stories for public radio WLRN's Public Storyteller segment.

Caren S. Neile, PhD., has taught storytelling studies at Florida Atlantic University for over two decades. She has taught writing at FAU, FIU, the Boca Raton Public Library, Belmont Village, Sinai Residences and other venues. A former Fulbright Senior Specialist, she has presented in 14 states and eight countries. Dr. Neile has published six books and numerous articles and book chapters, including in the Oxford Handbook of American Folklore and Folklife Studies. A co-founder of the international academic journal Storytelling, Self, Society, she appears regularly on public radio WLRN and is a longtime columnist for the Sun-Sentinel’s Jewish Journal. Her upcoming book Featuring Florida is due out from the History Press in February.

NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.  

Upcoming Events