How to Make the Unconscious Conscious: Forget About Your Genius and Say What You Mean with AS King

A.S. King has been called "one of the best YA writers today" by the New York Times Book Review. She is the author of more than 15 novels for young people and has won the LA Times Book Prize, the Michael L. Printz Award; and the Margaret A. Edwards Award, and the ALAN Award for lifetime achievement in the field of young adult literature. King is the co-founder of the USF MFAY program and is the founder of Gracie's House, a nonprofit that provides safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth in rural areas. She spends many months of the year traveling the world speaking to high school and university students, educators, and humans who care about literacy, equality, and the mental health of young people. She lives in Pennsylvania with her son and her loud cat.

This talk is coming with a content warning, but the content that may disturb you may be your own. 

How can you make your reader cry if you don't cry first? You have to look at the gross to see the beauty in it.

Amy tells us: "Things will get gross in here today."

Trauma is personal. It isn't a contest.

Fiction for Amy is code. Teens are told their teen years are the best of their lives, and that their experiences don't' matter. All BS. Amy uses metaphor and surrealism to talk about trauma in story. 

You too can write in code. 

Amy encourages: Write about your dreams. Explore your dreams. 

Your early dreams and daydreams are important. You can trust that child, and listen. 

Amy shifts the room into a great deal of writing. Automatic writing. Just writing. 

She asks us to write the earliest dreams you remember. Or earliest memories. "Now write a story, write it fast. Use the feeling that dream gave you...Tell your writer brain to take a hike." 

A bit of homework
for the room: Write a letter to the person who hurt us the most. 

Amy encourages us to read 3 weird psychology articles this week, not just any three but three that could help you heal from the things we uncovered during this workshop. 

Here are some little snippets from some final thoughts from Amy:

"A lot of people think they are boring. I assure you, you are not...Write about the depths that you know. You are not boring, trust me." 

"Your job is to get the experience and just write. Forget about being a writer."

"Maybe lay off the craft books for a little while."