Writing Our Way Out of Trouble: Sue Reynolds at TEDxStouffville

The results of 25 years of research strongly indicates that writing down what distresses and dismays us not only makes us feel better - it improves our resistance to physical illness, decreases the symptoms of anxiety and depression, improves our sleep patterns, as well as providing a host of other benefits. This promising psycho-social intervention is available 24/7 to anyone with a modicum of literacy. Sue Reynolds will talk about her work facilitating creative writing with female inmates in the Provincial Corrections system, and about how the protocols for writing for health can help all of us in times of trouble.

BIO: Susan Lynn Reynolds is a freelance writer, an accredited writing instructor in the Amherst Writers and Artists' method, former president of the Writers' Community of Durham Region (WCDR) and former vice-chair of the national organization Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs.

Her YA novel won the Canadian Library Association's national Young Adult Novel of the Year award, and she is also a winner of the Timothy Findley Creative Writing Prize for her short stories and poetry.

She is currently practicing psychotherapy under supervision towards the fulfillment of the requirements for her license as a psychotherapist.

Her area of specialty is the therapeutic use of journaling and memoir, and her thesis on that topic received the Canadian Psychological Association's Award of Academic Excellence.

She has been leading writing workshops for female inmates at Central East Correctional Centre for six years and she received the June Callwood Award for Outstanding Volunteerism for that program.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)