Stories of my Life: Remembering through Nature with Anna Rumin

• Day: Wednesdays
• Dates: May 7-June 11, 2025
• Time: 1:00pm – 3:30pm
• Location: Carleton University
• Price: $250+HST

Overview

We all have a story to tell.  Often, we think of a life story or memoir as a chronology of events.  However, knowing where to begin can become so overwhelming that we put off writing the story at all.  This is an invitation to re-collect, record and share the stories from your life through nature.  What forests, rivers, sand-dunes, skies, mountains, hills, puddles, cardinals, animals, eels, lizards and bees and mosquitos and wasps and campfires and Milky Ways and sunsets and sunrises and snow-storms and rain-storms and falling stars and lightning storms and grasshoppers and cats and cougars and bushes and lilacs and lemon trees and maple trees and deep dark rich soil gardens, played an important role in your life? Who are you when you look at the moon and know that everyone everywhere sees the same moon? How do we feel when we save a bird but kill a wasp? What is it to take a seed and watch it grow and nourish us with tomatoes? How does it feel to stare into the eyes of a dog, of a lone male elephant, of a dying bird? What does the smell of smoke remind us of? When we eat mint who do we remember? When our fingers nails are caked in earth what can we taste and what do we smell? What is it to be in a storm? How does nature give us a glimpse into who we were and who we have become? What happened to you when you finally trapped the mouse? The chicken? The beaver? Please bring your own writing instruments to a safe environment where you will experiment with writing strategies using prompts, share your writing with others, and begin your collection of life-stories.

About the Lecturer

Dr. Anna Rumin is a native Montrealer whose identity has been shaped by the political landscape of her home province, her Russian roots, a passion for lifelong learning that has been woven both formally in academia and informally through travel, voracious reading and writing, and a love for the stories hidden in our natural world.

Her interest in narrative inquiry stems from her belief that not only do we all have a story to tell but that our stories help us to better understand who we were, who we are and who we are becoming. She has now designed fifteen memoir-based writing workshops that invite participants to think of themselves as the narrators of their lives, as seen and written through a particular lens. Anna is committed to supporting those with whom she works by providing them with opportunities to set and meet their goals. In her spare time, Anna writes short fiction and has been the recipient of numerous awards.

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