71: What’s Inside Your Container?

This episode contains content about a suicide attempt.

Today on our show, we’re talking about a container, which is a cool way to structure a story. It’s a method to tell your entire story while you are contained in a place or period of time. For example, on a plane, in a meeting, or an afternoon at a hair appointment. The goal is for the narrator to take the reader or listener along in the moment while stepping out of the container to tell a much bigger story. 

Lorinne Griswold, a listener from San Francisco, submitted her story, Self Care, which details her 20-year-old daughter’s attempted suicide. 

Lorinne’s essay starts right before her hair appointment and ends when she leaves that appointment. The story is told while Lorinne is sitting in the stylists chair. She expertly takes us in and out of that appointment so we feel like we are sitting in the chair with her. We learn so much about her daughter, past struggles with being a mother. We also learn how she has been dealing with the current situation, and what she has learned.

Lorinne Griswold graduated from St. Mary’s College of California with a B.S. in business and has been working for Chevron for almost 30 years. Lorinne told us she has always used journaling as a creative outlet, but when she started struggling with her oldest daughter a few years ago, journaling became one of the only ways to untangle all the messy feelings in her head. She has filled more than 100 journals but has never shared her writing with anyone. That all changed when she found the Writing Class Radio podcast and realized that she wasn’t the only one using writing to work out her SH!T. Listening to others be vulnerable and honest gave Lorinne the courage to write and submit her own story. 

Writing Class Radio is a podcast where you’ll hear true personal stories and learn a little about how to write your own stories. Writing Class Radio is equal parts heart and art. By heart we mean the truth in a story. By art we mean the craft of writing. No matter what’s going on in our lives, writing class is where we tell the truth. It’s where we work out our shit, and figure out who we are. 

There’s no place in the world like writing class and we want to bring you in.

Writing Class Radio is co-hosted by Allison Langer (www.allisonlanger.com) and Andrea Askowitz (www.andreaaskowitz.com). Writing Class Radio is produced by Virginia Lora, Andrea Askowitz and Allison Langer and sponsored by The Launchpad at The University of Miami, which aims to make the practice of entrepreneurship available to all students and alumni. 

Theme music is by Christine Corey. Additional music is by Kevin Miles Wilson.

There’s more writing class on our website (www.writingclassradio.com), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/writingclassradio/), Instagram and Twitter (@wrtgclassradio).

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Writing Class Radio is now open to submissions from our listeners. Go to the submissions page on our website for guidelines. We pay!

If you want to be a part of the movement that helps people better understand each other through storytelling, we’ve made it easy for you to get involved. We are now on Patreon. For $10/month you can join Andrea’s submissions support group. We’ll support each other as we try to get our stories published. For $25/month you can join Allison’s weekly writers lunch, where you can write and share your work. Go to www.Patreon.com/writingclassradio or click here to support us.