Broadcast
Television
It’s been an enormous gift’: New class teaches first responders to write about memories on the job.
by: Tyler Thrasher |
Podcast
The Danny and Park Novels Good News Podcast
JANUARY 27, 2022 | JAMIE | SEASON 3 | EPISODE 13
Free Creative Writing Class for First-Responders Brings Catharsis, Bonding Over Shared Experiences
Richmond Times Dispatch, Ali Rockett, 12/24/20
Some situations stick with the fire, EMS and police personnel who respond to them long after the emergency is over.
One 911 call, involving a dead child and a mother, stayed with Kathy Kahlson for years, the retired Chesterfield Fire captain said in a recorded interview that police made available.
It wasn’t until she wrote about it in a creative writing class for first responders that she was able to let it go.
“I remember when I was done with that particular class after writing that story that I was done with the call,” Kahlson said. “I realized that I hadn’t been done with that call for 15 years.”
Kahlson signed up for the First Responses project, a free writing class taught by David L. Robbins, a novelist and professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, after seeing an advertisement in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“I didn’t even realize when I saw that ad in the paper that this was going to have a profound impact on me,” Kahlson said. “Being able to share those experiences with other first responders has been so meaningful for all of us. Because there isn’t really a place in the culture where we get to talk honestly about our experiences and how they resonate with us and have a deep impact on our lives. There just isn’t a place where we can do that.”