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Introduction

WELCOME to One Year of Writing and Healing, a site designed to explore a myriad of connections between writing and healing—and to facilitate your own exploration.

The site now has three primary doorways for exploration:

I’ve had this notion from time to time that it could be rather wonderful to open a bakery, or a café, or perhaps a whole house, where a person could come, find a table by the window—get a cup of coffee or tea—and just write. No expectations. No pressure. But simply this idea of a place where writing could happen.

In the story by Hemingway, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” an old man sits on the terrace of a café at closing time. It’s late, but the old man, the last customer of the night, is reluctant to leave. A young waiter wipes off the old man’s table with a towel and tries to shoo him out. But a second waiter, older than the first, understands the old man’s need to linger. “Each night,” he says, “I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the café.” Not “someone,” Hemingway writes. But some one. Even one would be reason enough to keep the café open.

This site aspires to be that café.

My hope is that it might offer resources and inspiration—and perhaps, too, an imagined place that might facilitate your own writing and discovery.

Below, please find a few pieces that address possible questions you may have.

All best,
Diane Morrow


Photo by Pam Fray from Geograph. It’s described this way: “Doorway on the west side of the church of St. Mary Magdalen, Davington, near to Faversham, Kent, Great Britain. The door, usually locked, leads to the grounds of what remains of Davington Priory, now a private residence. It is open at present to offer refreshments to those visiting the Flower Festival in the church.”