Improvisational Writing from the Heart
An online writing group

Improvisational writing helps writers to pour stories from the heart onto the page.

We use pen and paper, like Natalie Goldberg’s writing practice and Julia Cameron’s morning pages, but in this group we also incorporate dialogue, monologue, improvisation and theatre games adapted for the page. The process evokes spontaneity and fluidity in our writing, freeing up our creative and authentic stories in a space where we can listen and be heard without censure.

We meet weekly via Zoom.
Group is currently full!
Donations gratefully accepted through Venmo: @DebPierceMcCabe

Resources:

• Rule of Thumb: a 5 woman script based on the true stories of survivors of domestic violence, addressing the question:  “Why don’t they just leave?”
  The script can be used as a reading with women in group settings.  For performances, a paper program should be given to audience members which includes phone numbers and websites for local and national support agencies. In addition, performances should include a post performance discussion with audience members, facilitated by an advocate working in the field of Domestic Violence or Sexual Assault.  More information

 

• Unfinished Dialogues:  short scripts which lead players into improvisation and help them to think on their feet in a conflict scenario.  Each kit contains three scripts: one for each player/actor, and one for the facilitator. Book one is in English and French.  Book two is in English, and is geared for adolescents.  To order, contact Deb.

 

• Drama therapy as treatment for survivors of domestic violence.  In S. L. Brooke (Ed.), The use of the creative therapies with survivors of domestic violence.  Springfield, IL:  Charles C. Thomas.  Chapter 14, pages 248 – 269  Pierce, Deborah.  (2008).   This chapter describes the Rule of Thumb and details and benefits of using drama therapy with survivors.

 

• Additional Scripts available by request: (for more information see Contact page)
  • A Christmas Carol (adaptation, 2020, an audience-participation staged reading, with carols)
  • Huckleberry Finn (adaptation, 1984)
  • The Elopement (Winner of the Jerome Johanning Playwriting Award)
  • A Story About Us
  • Holy Ground
  • Ticket to Heaven
  • Spruce
  • On the Way to the Wedding
  • Just As We Are
  • Stitches
  • Mouth of Maury

    
On the Way to the Wedding, 2018                                    Spruce, 2020                                    Mouth of Maury, 2023

 

• The Wild Men of Josephine County, a metaphorical fiction novel (unpublished)

When Kate discovers two “creatures” with bright-colored hair locked in a cave at the back of a roadside zoo she soon realizes they’re human. She contacts the authorities, but by the time the local sheriff arrives the two people have vanished. The “wild men” lead the reader on a hide-and-seek journey through the Siskiyou Mountains as they struggle to remain unseen, but when news breaks that Bigfoot has been spotted, the entire county sets out to hunt for them. Kate puts her life and her reputation at risk to try to rescue them. This metaphorical fiction and coming-of-age novel takes place in 1985 along the Redwood Highway in southern Oregon.