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This 90-minute workshop helps you gather the memories, reflections and sensory details of your birth experience and transform them into creative expression.
Join writers Jaclyn Desforges and Miranda Hill for a 90-minute workshop to gather the memories, reflections and sensory details of your birth experience and transform them into creative expression.
Experiment with visualization, imaginative prompts and free-writing. You’ll have the opportunity (if you choose) to share your writing aloud. Whether you’re hoping to explore your personal experience more deeply, leave your child a written record, or communicate your journey to a wider audience, Write Your Birth Story is a fertile place to begin.
All genders and birth experiences are welcome. No prior writing experience is necessary and all writing will be done within the workshop. Just bring yourself and your favourite pen.
Jaclyn Desforges is the queer and neurodivergent author of a short story collection, Weird Babies (The Porcupine's Quill, 2026), a poetry collection, Danger Flower (Anstruther Books, 2021), and a picture book, Why Are You So Quiet? (Annick Press, 2020). She teaches creative writing at Wilfrid Laurier University and lives in Hamilton, Ontario with her partner and daughter. Jaclyn is working on her first novel, Eyelash Person, with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Miranda (Mimi) Hill is passionate about writing and about birth. As a writer, she is the winner of both The Journey Prize and The City of Hamilton Book Award. As a doula, she supported 22 births in the last year alone. As the co-creator of Write Your Birth Story, she’s honoured to help workshop participants explore and tell their own unique birth experiences in a way that feels meaningful to them.
The Ancaster Branch first opened in 1955. The branch moved several times over the following decade. The library arrived at its current location on Wilson Street in 1967 as a Centennial project. Completely renovated in 2006, the branch offers materials and programming for children, teens and adults.
