Survival Kit Writing Collective | Free Workshops May 16

What You Get

What a Month Includes

The same dependable rhythm, every month.

A Writing Practice guest: a writer leading a themed writing session.

An Embodied & Expressive Practice guest: somatic movement, embodied imagination, tarot and creativity, or expressive arts.

A craft workshop with Erik: a focused session on a craft theme, in the spirit of the free Writing Trauma workshops.

A journal discussion: we read a literary journal together and talk about where your own work might fit and how to send it out.

Breaking Breath Together: a monthly Sunday open mic and feedback session, where we share what the week's prompts shook loose and respond to each other's work. No pressure to read.

Body doubling, four days a week: write in company, each on your own work. Mornings Monday and Wednesday, evenings Tuesday and Thursday.

The Daily Kit Bag: a daily practice of gratitude, noticing, and naming what you're working on.

A weekly prompt: alternating craft with expressive or somatic exploration.

An open AMA thread: ask Erik anything about writing, process, or the literary world. Answered Fridays.

A community space: connect with other writers and share work, as much or as little as you like.

Erik Fuhrer wearing a colorful unicorn shirt and red scarf

The Philosophy

Put Down the Umbrella

A space to stop doomsday prepping for the next storm.

Someone told me once that when I spoke with my abuser, I needed to bring an umbrella, to protect myself from the inevitable storm of those encounters. But umbrellas rarely hold in storms like those. They upend. They fly away. At least for me. There I go, literalizing metaphors again.

I've been part of so many spaces in my life that had the trappings and signals of safety but were ultimately not safe, because of certain people, or certain policies, or both. As a queer person, I found it difficult to locate safety in spaces often built and protected for cis, white, heterosexual men. For a long time, I believed that being safe meant morphing myself into more palatable shapes and forms.

A big aspect of queerness is feeling unhomed and the imperative to build a new, safer home. This is inner work. It is also writing work. In this space, those two things happen at the same time. This is a human feeling, though it beats deep in queer hearts that are constantly taught that they are empty or dysfunctional.

My most recent book, Gellar Studies (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023), uses Sarah Michelle Gellar's film characters to unfold narratives of queer trauma. My memoir, My Buffed Up Life, uses Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a fictional interlocutor to write through personal trauma and memory. I am not asking you to do anything I have not done and continue to do.

What Makes This Different

Writing and Wellness in the Same Room

This space facilitates both craft and self-care because you can't separate the writer from the person.

Here's what I know from years of teaching people to write through trauma: you cannot show up to write about trauma if your nervous system is still running the show. The page becomes another place that demands performance. Another room where you have to hold it together.

That's why this space does both at once. You'll find weeks where the prompt asks you to move your body before you write, or to draw before you draft, or to sit with a single image for ten minutes before putting a word down. And you'll find weeks where we dig into line breaks, or structure, or how to build a braided essay. Both are here, because both are necessary.

The craft prompts teach you how to build the house. The mindfulness prompts help you actually live in it. If
          you have been doing shadow work, inner child work, or any practice that asks you to look at what you carry,
          this is the writing space built for that.

Every month includes prompts, group chats, and live events, craft and mindfulness together, so you can participate at the level that fits your life.

Belonging

Who This Is For

An online trauma-informed writing workshop for survivors and people writing through trauma at every level of experience. No matter where you live.

Some members have written for years, while others are beginning serious writing for the first time.

If trauma sits in your body and you've been wondering how to move it into language without it costing you everything, you belong here.

If you're carrying a story that tried to bury you and you want to be the one holding the shovel, you belong here.

If you have survived this world and don't want to carry that umbrella into every space anymore, this space invites you to put it down.

If you hold space for other people's stories all day and have never had a space for your own, you belong here too.

Doors open July 1. Hold your spot to get the presale link first.

Hold Your Spot in the Survival Kit Writing Collective

For writers who've been in spaces that claimed to be safe but weren't.

The Daily Practice

The Daily Kit Bag

Three things, every day. Gratitude first, then noticing, then naming what you're working on. The whole person shows up as the writer.

We begin with gratitude because it is extremely difficult to produce luminous sentences while narrating your own downfall in the background. Gratitude adjusts the spotlight. Suddenly, you are less tragic third act and more the witches foretelling the future of the world in Macbeth (because let's be honest, the witches are the epic heroes of that play).

Second, we practice noticing because that's where the real witchy work lies. The way that cloud looked like your mother's face when you lied about where you really were that night. That perfect Elton John metaphor that popped into your mind in the shower (maybe you sang it!). There is no separate "writing life" floating above your real one. It's all the same fabric. We are our own ghosts.

Lastly, we name what we're working on in our writing, or in our relationship with our writing, because saying it out loud keeps us from ghosting ourselves.

Small posts. Ongoing rhythm. A way to stay connected with the spirits of yourself and your work.

1. Daily gratitude or affirmation: for your life or your writing.

2. One thing you noticed or observed: today or recently. Small or large.

3. What you're working on: in your writing or in your relationship with your writing.

If you don't feel like you can answer all three, focus on the ones that call to you today. This process is not about perfection.

The Daily Kit Bag is the cornerstone of every kit. The place where wellness and writing meet before you ever open a blank page.

Expectations

What You Might Be Imagining

This is not an exposure workshop or a forced disclosure space; it is writing that moves at your pace.

You hear "trauma writing" and you picture something specific. Everyone crying. Everyone confessing. Everyone is bleeding all over the page. Maybe we are all going to look like those wraiths from Harry Potter. Maybe it is going to be depressing in there. Maybe someone is going to tell you what your life was really like.

I get it. That sounds terrifying. It sounds like a costume party where the costume is your worst memory, and you did not even want to come.

That is not what this is.

Most of the people I have worked with do not want to write "light" things. They come in carrying something: a person, a moment, a memory, a pressure they can feel in their chest. But they are terrified of what writing it might cost them.

What if people do not believe me? I heard that my whole life when I sought help. "Pictures or it did not happen" is not just internet troll speak. In this space, your experience is not up for debate.

What if my abuser, or the person I survived, reads this? Those people will think nothing unless you choose to share. And you never have to. And if you decide you want to, you can think critically about that once you have it written.

What if I have to say everything? You do not. This space is built around the idea that you do not owe disclosure in order to write truthfully.

What you learn here is how to let the writing and the craft carry the weight, instead of your nervous system.

The Craft

What People Actually Do Here

Gentle, structured ways in. Through images, prompts, and play. Never forced excavation.

Pathways to speaking about trauma often open precisely when we stop trying to write directly about it. I learned that myself. The first hundred times I tried to write my own experiences, it failed. Then I started writing letters to Buffy Summers, and all of a sudden, memories I was never before able to write or speak started arriving on the page. This process became two books: My Buffed Up Life and Gellar Studies. For the first time, it didn't feel like my trauma was a grave I was buried in. I was the one with the shovel. With the pen. With control.

That's the work of this space. Not excavation. Not confession. Craft.

Here's what that has looked like in practice:

One writer discovered that weaving in mythology, paralleling her own experiences with older, larger stories, made the material feel safer to hold.

Another writer braided the personal with the historical, and that distance gave her room to breathe.

One person wrote very short, lyrical pieces. Images and fragments that captured the emotion without having to divulge what actually happened.

Another created personas to speak the pain.

Another brought in pop culture, for distance, for levity, for a way to say the unsayable with someone else's vocabulary.

What all of these writers share: they came in wanting to write about something, people, memories, moments, and they left feeling unburdened by the imperative to bleed on the page. They learned that craft is its own form of protection. That a myth or a film or a fragment or a persona can hold what the body has been holding alone.

Trauma isn't a watch. It doesn't keep time the way we want it to. But writing can give it a form. And form is how we survive it.

Outcomes

What People Have Found Here

People here discover that their bodies are part of the process.

One member came to this practice convinced that writing about her life meant reliving it. Through curated readings and guided exploration, she discovered mythology as a parallel structure, a way to write alongside her own story without being consumed by it. She wrote more freely in six weeks than she had in years.

Another writer with decades of experience had never been able to bring her personal material into her work. By braiding private narrative with public history, letting the collective weight of a historical moment hold her individual story, she found a form that finally felt honest without feeling exposed.

A writer new to creative work entirely came in with a compulsion to write something but no language for it. They began writing in fragments. Short, lyrical, image-driven. They discovered that emotion could exist on the page without explanation. The images did the telling.

The body could rest.

Several members have said some version of this: I came in afraid I'd have to say everything. I left realizing that what I wrote was truer than anything I could have confessed.

Safety

About Safety

I don't use the word "safe" loosely. I've been in too many spaces that used it loosely.

This is not a space where someone sits in the corner and tells you what your work should be based on their guidelines of good writing. We go by what the author thinks. That is the voice we honor every time we discuss someone's work. Always.

No one is ever required to share anything. You can show up to read, to listen, to think, to write privately. Part of what makes us good writers is being good readers, and part of the way we know what we want to write is by listening to what other people write.

If someone ruptures the safety of this space, this will no longer be a space they are invited into. I've never had to enforce that. But I say it anyway, because safety isn't implied. It's designed.

I can't promise perfection. But I can promise that I will always actively seek to be aware of people's needs, actively build around them, and listen more than I speak. Hopefully, in this space, we can put away our umbrellas.

What's Inside

The Explorer Kit

Everything is built on the Daily Kit Bag, craft and expressive prompts, and a community that holds space.

What a typical week looks like

Every day, the Daily Kit Bag: a gratitude prompt, a noticing exercise, and a space to name what you're working on. Four days a week, body doubling, where we write in company, each on our own work (mornings Monday and Wednesday, evenings Tuesday and Thursday). A weekly prompt that alternates craft with expressive or somatic exploration. Across the month, the live gatherings: two guests (a Writing Practice guest and an Embodied & Expressive Practice guest), a craft workshop with Erik, a journal discussion, and Breaking Breath Together, a Sunday open mic. The AMA thread is open all week. Erik responds Fridays.

The Explorer Kit

How do I start writing about this?

Generate & Discover

$99 per month

The Daily Kit Bag: daily gratitude, noticing, and naming what you're working on.

Body doubling, four days a week: 90-minute sessions where we write in company, each on our own work, with a few check-ins along the way. Mornings Monday and Wednesday, evenings Tuesday and Thursday. Exact times shared at presale. Async option available.

Weekly asynchronous prompts: alternating between expressive modality prompts (mindfulness, self-discovery through writing, art, and movement) and craft-focused exercises.

Writing Practice guest (monthly): a writer leading a themed writing session. 1.5 hrs. Live, recorded, with an async option.

Embodied & Expressive Practice guest (monthly): a guide leads somatic movement, embodied imagination, tarot and creativity, or expressive arts: ways into the work that start in the body and the imagination. 1.5 hrs. Live, recorded, with an async option.

A craft workshop with Erik (monthly): a focused session on a craft theme, in the spirit of the free Writing Trauma workshops. Teaching, discussion, writing time, Q&A. 1.5 hrs. Live, recorded, with an async option.

Breaking Breath Together (monthly): a Sunday open mic and feedback session, where we share what the week's prompts shook loose and respond to each other's work. No pressure to read. Come just to listen if you want. Not recorded, so people feel free to share.

1 journal discussion per month: read a journal issue together, discuss audience and fit, optionally submit. 2 hrs. Live, with an asynchronous option for people who can't make it. Not recorded, so people feel free to share without the pressure of recording.

Optional peer review groups: Erik sets up Zoom groups for independent feedback sessions.

Weekly AMA thread: asynchronous, open all week, Erik responds Fridays.

A community space: connect with other writers and share work, as much or as little as you like.

Two deeper tiers are coming. After launch, a formal workshop group and one-on-one developmental work with Erik will open by application. More on those once the collective is up and running.

Your membership includes: The Daily Kit Bag practice. Craft and expressive prompts. Curated readings. A community of people doing this work alongside you. An ethos of care.

All feedback is individualized toward your voice and your style. You will never be asked to write like someone else. You will be helped to write more fully like yourself.

None of this is therapy. This is a writing and wellness practice. Healing often happens inside it. The focus is always on the craft, the community, and the process.

Month-to-month. Yearly options offered at a discount with extra perks.

Hold your spot. Community opens July 1.

Hold Your Spot in the Survival Kit Writing Collective

For writers who want to write through trauma and difficult material with somatic awareness and safety built into the process.

A writing & wellness practice. Not a substitute for therapy or clinical care.

Questions

Frequently Asked

Do I need writing experience to join?+

No. But all of us are already writers in some way. We text, we write emails, reports, letters, social media posts. The collective will give you tools to explore that identity and practice.

Do I have to write about my own trauma?+

No. A lot of people come to me because they want to write specifically through trauma. Other people are writing about trauma but not about their own. And even if you are writing through your trauma, this does not mean you have to write directly about it. That's what this collective really does: helps you find genres and forms to write about difficult topics and content in ways that feel safe, productive, and generative.

Do I have to share my writing with the group?+

No. You are invited and given space to share, but you never have to until you're ready, and if you never are, that's fine too. (The deeper tiers that open later, by application, are built around revision and feedback, so sharing happens more there. You will always set the boundaries on the feedback you want.)

What happens in the live sessions? When are they held?+

It depends on the session. Each month brings a Writing Practice guest and an Embodied & Expressive Practice guest, a craft workshop I lead, a journal discussion, and Breaking Breath Together, our Sunday open mic and feedback session. Four days a week there is body doubling, where we write in company. No workshop-bro energy that co-opts your work into someone else's voice or shreds it because it's not theirs. Promise.

The monthly gatherings are on Saturdays, with Breaking Breath on a Sunday. Body doubling runs Mondays and Wednesdays in the morning, and Tuesdays and Thursdays in the evening. Exact times will be shared at presale.

Asynchronous options will always be made available when possible. I'm always happy to work something out individually as well.

What if I can't make a live session?+

The craft workshop and guest sessions are recorded. Body doubling and Breaking Breath are not, because I want people to feel comfortable writing and sharing, and not recording helps with safety in those spaces. There is an async option for body doubling, and a weekly prompt you can do whenever you like. You are always welcome to email me to touch base. As the community develops, I can set up private groups for people who have formed bonds and want to meet on their own.

Asynchronous options will always be made available when possible. I'm always happy to work something out individually as well.

Is there a minimum commitment? Can I cancel anytime?+

If you sign up month to month, you're committed to finishing the month you paid for but can cancel at any time before the next month renews. If you sign up for the year, you're committed to finishing the year.

Is this therapy?+

No. I do not have a clinical license. My PhD is in creative writing, and I have run writing courses, DEI workshops, and implicit bias workshops. My expertise is in building intentional spaces that are safe and brave for participants. While your life may inform your writing, and is welcome to be referenced in relation to the writing and your writing process, as this collective is about the wellness of the whole person, it is still writing-focused.

How do I know which kit is right for me?+

At launch there is one tier: the Explorer Kit, for anyone who wants to develop a steady writing practice and explore different pathways for writing through and about trauma and other difficult material. It is a place to explore.

After launch, two deeper tiers open by application: a formal workshop group for people who want direct, communal feedback on a specific project, and one-on-one developmental work with me for people building something larger, a poetry book, a memoir, a collection or series. More on those once we are running.

Can I switch between kits?+

At launch everyone is in the Explorer Kit, so there is nothing to switch between yet. When the deeper tiers open by application, you will be able to apply to move up. Email me anytime and we will sort it out.

What if I'm not ready?+

Then you're not ready, and that's fine. The waitlist asks very little of you. If when the collective opens you want more, it will be here. If you don't, no harm done.

What if I do it wrong?+

There is no wrong here. There are drafts. There are attempts. There are pieces that don't work yet and pieces that surprise you. The only wrong thing would be for someone to tell you your experience isn't valid or your form isn't correct. That will never happen in this space.

What if I feel too exposed?+

In the Explorer Kit, you don't have to share anything. You can write privately for as long as you need. And you don't have to write about it directly to write about it truthfully. Persona, myth, genre shift, fragment, these are all ways in. You choose the one that fits. I'll help you find your individual path. Your safety and comfort is paramount.

I'm not queer. Is this space for me?+

Yes, of course. This space does not discriminate. Everyone is welcome and everyone will be treated with respect and care.