Stories that Heal
Classes
&
Workshops
UPCOMING CLASSES:
When Memoir Becomes Autofiction, introductory
6 wk. workshop - Starts 9/8/25
Advanced Autofiction
12 mo. workshop and mentorship - Starts 6/18/25
Scroll down for details.
Three essays on autofiction:
theory and craft
By Victoria Costello
Can We Talk About Autofiction?
"It seems to me that readers assume an author’s life and art overlap to some degree. In asking the question of an author, they’re simply wanting to know how much. Maybe there’s a better answer than zero."
Read more
On Reality, Fiction and Neurodiversity
"As an author with lifelong major depression and as the mother of a neurodiverse son, I felt compelled to tell the story of ORCHID CHILD in all its complexity, even if I had to break a bunch of genre rules to do it."
Read more
Mainstream Publishing Has a God Problem
"Why is the depiction of genuine healing from trauma so rare? I suggest one part of the answer is an aversion to positive representations of spirituality in the fictional lives of traumatized characters."
Read more
Stories that Heal
Upcoming classes & Workshops
CLASS REGISTRATION & PAYMENT
My autofiction classes are administered through the auspices of WritingWorkshops.
Follow the links in each class description to WritingWorkshops.com, to see these class listings, and to apply, register, and arrange payments.
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ADVANCED AUTOFICTION:
Transform and Publish Your
Trauma-Informed Story
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A 12-month workshop and mentorship
Starts on June 18, 2025
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Are you motivated to explore the ancestral roots and potential healing of the trauma that has followed you around all your life? ​For a trauma-informed storyteller, recovery can take many forms, both in real life and on the page. It's also true that healing doesn’t always amount to a happy ending in either context. A satisfying denouement can occur when your protagonist sees the negative patterns they carry did not begin with them, or after accepting they've done as well as they can with the tough hand they've been dealt.
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My Approach to Autofiction
While most writers working strictly in fiction or memoir also draw on their lives, it is my conviction as a writer and teacher working across these genres, that autofiction can supercharge the inherently therapeutic act of writing from life. While borrowing theory and craft from other genres, auto-fictional writing posits a unique contract between authors and readers, one that allows frequent movements between fact and fiction. It's in these vacillations, when a storyteller openly engages with the question of what if, that the real alchemy can happen. What if I had confronted the perpetrator who terrorized me and demanded my silence? What if that person had faced justice? Who would I be now?
Whether the trauma stemmed from an act of violence inflicted on them, the early loss of a parent or even a hardship endured by an ancestor up to three generations ago, by pursuing the truth, and re-imagining it to open new possibilities, writers can create powerful healing narratives with reverberations in their present lives — and in the lives of their readers. ​​
And yet... aspiring authors of life-inspired fiction are often warned against bringing individual or family traumas into a writing class, with many instructors warning, “this is literature not therapy.” After publishing an award-winning memoir and a debut novel reflecting my own experience of intergenerational trauma, then finding unprocessed trauma often hindering the creative process of my writing students, I've designed a course that takes a different tact. In this year-long, advanced autofiction class, I teach storytelling using trauma-informed craft lectures and traditional workshopping — the bread and butter of creative writing classes — with group role-play adapted from psychotherapy.
This unique approach addresses students’ twin goals of completing a book length work of literature intended for publication, while also achieving some measure of personal healing.​
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The Practical Details
​This course consists of six writers meeting bimonthly with the instructor on the first and third Wednesdays, with each writer receiving an additional five, one-on-one meetings with the instructor to review individual progress.​ This course is open to intermediate or advanced writers with a first draft manuscript of autobiographical fiction underway. The six writers selected for this course must commit to generating a monthly minimum of twenty new pages. They must also provide written and verbal feedback on a monthly average of forty pages written by their fellow writers.​
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Our twice-monthly, full group, Zoom meetings will consist of:
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A mini-lecture addressing a topic specific to auto-fictional writing: “Creating a protagonist who is you but not you” and “Adapting the traditional three-act story structure for a trauma-centered, narrative.
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Group role play and guided visualization: An instructor-led process to mine character and thematic insights focused on one writer’s WIP.
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Workshop: Verbal feedback on two participants’ works-in-progress. By year’s end, each writer’s work will be workshopped four times.
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Each individual writer also receives from the instructor:
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Five, one-on-one manuscript consultations, scheduled approximately every other month, to review individual progress.
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A written and verbal review of each writer's complete first draft at the end of the year-long course.​​​
​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Application requirements and process:​​
Any writer working on a manuscript of autofiction — of at least 15,000 words or 50 pages — underway may apply for this course. Ten sample pages from this work-in- process must be submitted for review by the instructor prior to acceptance. A maximum of six motivated writers will be accepted for this course.
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Cost: $4200. Payment is accepted by check, Paypal, credit card, and can be submitted in whole or in monthly payments. Apply and arrange payment at WritingWorkshops.com.
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See full course description for Advanced Autofiction at WritingWorkshops.com
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Apply now for Advanced Autofiction at WritingWorkshops.com. ​​​
Questions, comments? Email Victoria: vcostelloteacher@gmail.com
"Only a few sessions into Victoria’s Advanced Autofiction class, I recognized her as uncommonly insightful—not just about the mechanics of writing but about character and motivation. If you’re ready to look honestly at your writing, work with Victoria Costello."
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Elaine Bennett, speechwriter
When Memoir Becomes Autofiction
A six-week class for beginning and intermediate writers who wish to explore the why's and how's of fictionalizing key events from their lives in a new work of autofiction.
Starts on September 8, 2025
Each class consists of lectures on theory and craft, generative exercises, and an interactive workshop for participants to offer and receive feedback on participants' works in progress. Each writer will have their pages workshopped twice over the six weeks.
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Who is this workshop for?
​This workshop is for you if you’re considering fictionalizing important aspects of a story about something that happened to you. That is, you’re writing a true story that would fit neatly in the memoir category if it didn’t include these departures from memory and known facts.
In other words, this is an introductory workshop for both memoirists and fiction writers who want to use both genres in a single piece of writing. This workshop will also be useful for memoirists who wish to learn more fiction writing craft to apply to a memoir in progress.
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Workshop Takeaways:
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Balancing Truth and Imagination​
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Crafting Believable Characters and Themes​
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Effective Feedback and Workshop Dynamics​
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Structured Progress and Accountability
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Strategies for Publishing
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This workshop meets weekly via Zoom on Mondays,
6-8pm ET, beginning September 8, 2025
Cost: $395. Payment is accepted by check, Paypal, credit card, and can be submitted in whole or in monthly payments.​
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See the full class description and register
for When Memoir Becomes Autofiction at WritingWorkshops.com
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No application or writing sample is required
for this class.
“I got so much from this class. It was informative and so much fun! It really infused some life back into me, which was my hope."
Alison L, Los Angeles
"Thank you, Victoria. You've given me the encouragement I needed to feel like this is a worthwhile project."
Pat Stafford, NC
"You offered honest, valuable feeback along with a personal touch. Your insight and sense of humor made the workshop comfortable and rewarding. ”
Paul B. CA.
Creative Journeying for
Ancestral Healing
​A two-day, in-person workshop for creative seekers who wish to mine family stories for insight and inspiration and apply what you uncover to an artistic project, for the dual purpose of creative expression and healing.
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Co-led by Victoria Costello and Michele Voska, a trauma-informed psychotherapist, this immersive workshop draws on creative writing, psychotherapy and indigenous traditions, including Druidry and American Indian shamanism, for its foundational concepts and processes. Using tools such as ceremony, guided visualization, and generative exercises, participants will alchemize their family wounds and open unconscious portals to locate the bones of new, healing stories.
On day one of this workshop, we help you find the source of the myth you tell about yourself — I'm unworthy, love is not real, no one can be trusted — and locate the how, why, where, and when of its genesis. We then begin undoing the damage this falsehood has done to you and your family through guided group processes where we embody and communally engage with the characters who populate your story. From this supportive group energy, new truths are likely to emerge. In the second half of our workshop, you again tap the energy of the group in order to translate your insights to a new artistic creation, which you then share with the group, inviting further responses, to help you ground and integrate this powerful experience.
Artistic media used by participants will include poetry and prose, visual art, movement, drums and voice. By creating and sharing your reimagined story, you will begin the process of manifesting meaningful change in your life.
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​This in-person workshop will take place in Fall of 2025 (specific dates to be announced soon) in Ashland, OR.
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