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Writing in the Dark

A writespace special event video

March 2025

What happens when we write not to demonstrate what we know, but to find out what we don’t know?

At this FREE WriteSPACE Special Event, International writing expert Helen Sword was joined by Jeannine Ouellette, author and creator of the extraordinary Substack newsletter Writing in the Dark.

For Jeannine, writing in the dark means “embracing the fundamental truth of uncertainty through a consistent practice of attention, curiosity, playfulness, surprise, and vulnerability” — a lesson with profound resonances not only for novelists, memoirists, and poets but for scholarly and professional writers as well.

In the first hour of this live two-hour event, Helen and Jeannine engaged in a wide-ranging conversation about writing, wordcraft, and their shared desire (in Jeannine’s words) “to wake language up and make it capable of telling the truth again, make it capable of holding beauty again, make it capable of being surprising, real, and free, so that we can be, too.” In the second hour, they jointly ran a hands-on workshop for paid subscribers to their respective newsletters, exploring how creative writing techniques with intriguing names such as “Shimmers and Shards” and “Strange Containers” (two of Helen’s favorites from among Jeannine’s extensive repertoire!) can enrich and enliven the work of any writer.

The video of the first hour is available to all registered participants; the full 2-hour video is uploaded for WriteSPACE members in the WriteSPACE Video Library.

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We hope you enjoy watching this WriteSPACE Special Event!

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