Memoirists, Do Your Emotional Homework! with Kristen Balelo

All memoirs tell a story. A satisfying memoir – a compelling, heart-warming, gut-wrenching, page-turner – is a portal to healing, learning, and self-awareness. The best memoirists establish an emotional connection between reader and writer. Creating this emotional connection takes work, emotional work. What is emotional homework? Why is it important? And how do I do it? These questions and more will be answered in this interactive and empowering workshop. 

Kristen Balelo earned a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in creative writing at Salve Regina University in July 2023. With an emphasis in nonfiction, she has been published in the first Shaking the Tree anthology and by The Shadow. She recently created a Substack where she has shared part of her memoir in progress, Fat Daughter. The story explores the impact food restriction and body shame have on a mother/daughter relationship and how a series of unfortunate events gave her mother and her an opportunity to heal their relationship which provided an opening for Kristen to start healing herself. She also writes about her experience growing up in a Portuguese community as the daughter of a commercial fisherman and her time advocating for youth in foster care. Her social media is dedicated to her writing, eating disorder recovery and eradicating diet culture. Substack: kristenbalelo.substack.com Instagram: @kristenbalelo