In my Story Forest creativity course, Little Red Writing Hood, I ask writers the question: what medicine does your story carry? In the fairytale, Little Red Riding Hood is bringing food and drink to her sick grandmother. As writers, we bring medicine in the form of stories to the world. It’s the kind of healing our world needs now more than ever.
But who heals the healers?
That’s where community comes in.
I’m just back from a two week residency at a low res children’s writing MFA program in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. The day I arrived, Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agents. The city was full of fear, masked agents, and defiant residents. In the midst of this pain and trauma, we dared to create a small community of writers and dreamers whose sole goal is to help kids navigate this inexplicable world. It was a balm to be in community, group wishing and group writing for a better tomorrow. The fear didn’t go away any more than the masked men did, but something else arrived: hope.
Coming together is how we survive hard times. It can be out front protesting, or a softer gathering, loving and creating. Both are forms of protest in a landscape that thrives on separatism and fear.
I’m home now and it feels a bit colder despite the fact that it was 5° degrees when I left, and 80° at home. I need a community blanket again! That’s why I’m looking forward to joining in conversation with two beautiful writers, Aimee Liu (Glorious Boy) and Elena Georgiou (The Immigrant’s Refrigerator) on February 9th on the Writer in the World substack that Aimee hosts. We are calling our conversation Writers In The World, Live: Create to Survive. I worked with these two women at Goddard College back in the day, and learned so much from them. Elena has a poet’s ability to shape the world with words. Aimee has the heart of an explorer, diving into the past to illuminate the present. And as Shakespeare knew, when three women gather to talk about the world’s troubles, magic follows. When those women are writers, that’s how magic spreads.
I hope you’ll join us on 2/9 for Writers In The World, Live: Create to Survive for a little community care. We’re also gathering in Vermont this June for the Two Trees Solstice Retreat with the same goal in mind. However you can, reach out to your own writing community to lift each other up, to inspire, and remember we have power to do good.
Stories are a safe place for hard conversations. Let’s find the medicines we can offer the ills of the world, and infuse our work with healing. The world soul is asking for it. And there is no better way to heal the world than doing it together.
Hope to see you soon,
Sherri
Monday, February 9, 2026, at 10am PT/ 1pm ET
Writers In The World, Live: Create to Survive
Please join WITW’s Substack Live MFA faculty reunion, as Elena Georgiou, Sherri L. Smith and Aimee Liu discuss the essential role of creativity as an engine for solace, hope, and resilience in today’s tormented world.
Register in Advance/Join the Conversation Here
Elena Georgiou is the award-winning poet and fiction writer who formerly directed Goddard’s MFA in Creative Writing Program and currently teaches in the PhD program at the Rubenstein School at the University of Vermont. Sherri L. Smith is an award-winning author of fiction, nonfiction, and graphic novels for young adults and kids, and a faculty member of Hamline University’s MFA in Children’s Writing. Aimee Liu, the bestselling author of four novels and numerous books of nonfiction, helms the substack MFA Lore.
