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By Dr. Nancy McCabe

During the spring of 2021, when we were all especially weary with the pandemic and restrictions and online classes, it seemed to Baily’s Beads advisor Dr. Nancy McCabe to be an opportune time for a special topics class on writing and healing. The body of research on expressive arts therapy shows that artistic work can serve as a route for managing stressful events and find healing from difficult experience. Studies have shown physiological effects from expressive writing such as reduced heart rates and blood pressure and strengthened immune systems.

The class discussed work by researchers such as James Pennbaker, who takes a scientific approach to studying expressive writing; Mihaly Csikszentmihihalyi’s who popularized the concept of “flow”; Natalie Goldberg, who promotes discussions of writing as a form of meditation, Diana Raab’s focus on methods connecting writing to general health benefits, Julia Cameron’s work on the artistic process, and Louise DeSalvo’s connections between aesthetic values and healing, coping, and recovery from grief or trauma.

Through writing exercises, poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, the class explored many of these ideas, focusing especially on DeSalvo’s description of the intersections between artistically successful work and healing benefits.

Alicia Reese, a nursing major who had done little creative work before the class, wrote a narrative that explores the complications of acquaintance assault as well as poetry on how we cope with loneliness—and how we find solace in nature.

Jourdan Robbins wrote an autobiographical piece of fiction about a father-daughter relationship as she processes a daughter’s grief.

Aubrie Shrubb looked at the way the birth of her younger sister led her to confront her own uneasy feelings about gender expectations.

Four lyric essays evolved:

Amanda Little used photographs to arrive at insights about an eating disorder;

Emily Miller found connections between the kiwi and her own complex family dynamics, and in a second essay poetically explores the connections between colors and the stages of her relationship with her mother through the lens of loss;

and Amelia Rodriguez confronts a younger self as she finds healing from childhood trauma.

You’ll find all of these pieces here, just a sampling of the excellent pieces of writing that the group produced.

by Jess Jordan

Author’s Note

How I came up with the idea: After doing some research of my own on different types of children’s picture books, I learned that it can be a good idea to have the characters as animals. This way there’s not a standard of how the child will look so more kids will be able to connect to the story better. So, once I picked out the animal in which my story would be based off of (penguins), I continued to brainstorm ideas until I came up with the dance idea. However, to make a good story there has to be a risk factor. In this case, it’s Peter losing his bowtie right before he and his friends are supposed to be leaving for the dance. I thought this could also make for good illustrations because we can have the penguins searching and messing up Peter’s room, something I’m sure many kids are familiar with.

The drawing/sketching process: I began with a basic character sketch of the penguins. From here, I began pairing up illustrations with each of the pages from my manuscript. For some of my previous writings, I actually started with sketch ideas first and then began writing the story, but for this particular story I found it a lot easier to base the images off of the manuscript/storyline. I like the contour line illustration style, I find it simple but still engaging to look at, so I knew I wanted to try to do this style as well. Although I haven’t yet completed the final illustrations, I do have the basic outlines and concepts done.

Putting it all together: Once I went through the critique and revision processes for the manuscript, I was able to put the words and images together into a rough draft of the book. I had already divided up what sections of the manuscripts would go on the different pages, so it made it easier to put the lines with the sketches. I used the Adobe programs to make the initial sketches and then to add the text onto the pages.