BOONE—Dr. Bruce Weigl, renowned poet and Vietnam veteran, Bronze Star winner and finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in poetry, will lead a workshop titled “Writing Trauma: A Workshop for Veterans and Their Families” Wednesday, Sept. 28, in Room 420 (Parkway Ballroom) of Appalachian State University’s Plemmons Student Union (PSU) from 4 – 7 p.m. The workshop is designed to help veterans and their families take charge of traumatic memories, lessening the control those memories may exert.

Describing the workshop, Wiegl wrote, “Writing about personal trauma is a difficult thing to do, but almost 30 years of experience working with veterans of several wars has taught me that it is also a powerful tool that can be restorative and even life-saving. To accomplish this, and introduce you to this idea, we’ll all participate in an exercise designed to put you in the position to take charge of your traumatic memories so that they no longer have control over you. We’ll also focus on making the writing of these traumas a literary and artistic problem rather than an emotional problem.”

Weigl is Appalachian’s Rachel Rivers-Coffey Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing for 2016 – 17. Weigl also will give a reading of his work Thursday, Oct. 6, from 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. in PSU’s Room 201B (Table Rock Room) as part of the Hughlene Bostian Frank Visiting Writers Series.

Joseph Bathanti, former North Carolina poet laureate and professor of creative writing, shared his thoughts about Weigl and the power of his workshop: “To my mind, Bruce Weigl is the most prominent, the most searing, soldier who came home from that (the Vietnam War) and starting writing poems. As Weigl states in his best-selling prose memoir, ‘The Circle of Hanh,’ ‘The paradox of my life as a writer is that the war ruined my life and in return gave me my voice.’ I find that in so many writers’ work, those just getting started, and those as decorated as Weigl, that the very experiences that haunt, even scar, them are precisely the stories that ultimately liberate them. I’ve certainly seen that up close, and in breathtaking ways, with the combat veterans I’ve personally taught in writing workshops.”

A reception precedes the Oct. 6 reading in Room 201A (Price Lake Room) of the PSU from 6 – 7:15 p.m. The reception also celebrates the Hughlene Bostian Frank Visiting Writers Series. The reception and reading are free and open to the public. The workshop on Sept. 28 is designed for veterans and their families. The Appalachian Veterans Arts and Humanities Collective is the sponsor of these events.

Parking is free on campus after 5 p.m. For more information, visit http://diversity.appstate.edu/events/id/353.

About the Appalachian Veterans Arts and Humanities Collective

The Appalachian Veterans Arts and Humanities Collective is a working group of Appalachian State University employees and students dedicated to providing ongoing, sustainable, hands-on arts and humanities programs and workshops to campus veterans as well as veterans and their families in the areas surrounding Watauga County and beyond. The collective partners with other veterans constituencies and departments across Appalachian’s campus to foster a consortium of thought, activity and scholarship to benefit in transformative ways our student veterans, our entire campus community and the citizens of the greater community.

About Appalachian State University

As a premier public institution, Appalachian State University prepares students to lead purposeful lives. App State is one of 17 campuses in the University of North Carolina System, with a national reputation for innovative teaching and opening access to a high-quality, cost-effective education. The university enrolls more than 21,000 students, has a low student-to-faculty ratio and offers more than 150 undergraduate and 80 graduate majors at its Boone and Hickory campuses and through App State Online. Learn more at https://www.appstate.edu.

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