Meet: Donna
Donna Marbury is a writer, reader, digital strategist, womanist and proud Ohioan. At Ohio Women’s Alliance, we are dedicated to uplifting the women, femme and nonbinary folks who make this state a better place through storytelling. Donna will be hosting a workshop with OWA in late February called 2020 Vision: A Visionboarding & Writing Experience. We sat down with her to talk about why writing matters to her as a restorative practice, how she creates space for writing in her life and workshops as well as how writing can act as a form of resistance for organizers and activists in the movement. The following is a transcript of the recorded video conversation.
“My name is Donna Marbury, I work in social media journalism and communications. Currently, I'm a storyteller at Smart Columbus. I also have some writing workshops; one called Writing for Wellness, which helps people use writing journaling for their self-care practices and also a networking event called Grammar and Chill, where people who are creative can get together and just like have drinks and talk about writing too. So I started writing when I was 13. I had the diary with the little lock on the side and that was my real like safe space. I could be super happy and dream big and be mad at my middle school boyfriend and everything that was going on in my life. I was able to process it whether it was a real emotion or not. In my writing process, even as a professional writer, I always come back to that. I started the workshop because I felt like people were using social media to express themselves and process their emotions and it's just not a safe space and so it's really important that you can come back to paper and pen and write in a safer space, and be able to think more about how you're feeling and not have the world judge what you’re feeling. I think there’s magic in the actual physical process of taking a piece of paper and pencil and putting it together. It is a more direct way to think about how you're feeling. Other arts, are definitely valuable to self-care, but they can be abstract and so I think with writing, it forces you to kinda get to the meat of how you're feeling. And commit to it, even if it's committed in a moment, your thoughts and feelings might change, but they’re valid and I think giving yourself the space to say I'm angry or I wanna do something crazy and big and beautiful, you should be able to document that and learn from it in the future. The physical action of putting that on paper is really valuable to me.
If there's a song that I like, I play that song over and over and over and right to it and just kinda free write and even if I'm imitating their words it will get me to a place where I have my words start flowing. As someone who writes for a living, I don't always like writing and so one thing I will write is like "I don't wanna write because…" That kinda gets me to deal with my emotions before I can get into my work, being really clear about like why you can't focus and putting that to paper can help you get to a place of focus. The cool thing about my workshop that I try to do in evoke all five senses and so on a perfect writing day, I’ll get my snacks, I'll get a candle. I'll get like something fuzzy that I will wrap myself into, it's usually my favorite color and you know, so I'll bring together all of these things. It’s kinda like evoking all of my senses and that gives me a good space to get into my own emotion. A lot of self-care practices ask you to go out and do something, but I think that's something you can do in your own room, like you have a piece of paper, something you'd like to wrap yourself into something like to eat and something like to smell. I think that's a good place to start in my taking care of yourself and allowing yourself to write.
It's important for us to document the way we feel in these times. I think in stories, really, men have been in charge of the narrative and what gets lost in that, is the emotion and the sadness and hope, that women, people of color and others who don't have the power, bring to the table, and that gets lost. I was reading something the other day about a woman who made all the meals for the civil rights activists, and her story and no, it's not a piece of legislation— it's not you know the person on the frontline, but what she brought to the table literally, nourished them. So I think regardless of your role in this work, documenting how you're feeling, what you're doing is important for the next generation to know, that we all have whole lives, you know, and for the people in the activist community, I really pour my heart out to them, because I feel like you know you have to nourish your whole life. Yes, this work is crazy. The world is crazy and like literally on fire, but you have to take time to take care of yourself, understand the importance of what you're doing, the story you have to tell, but then have a place to decompress and let go as well.
I'm really excited about the workshop coming up. I’m looking forward to sharing with everyone who's coming we might shed a few tears but we’ll also have a good time as well. At the end of it, hopefully, you’re feeling lighter and you can use some of these practices to help you maneuver through all of the great work you're doing, so see you soon!”
To sign up for the workshop click here. If you want to learn more about Donna’s work, check out her website donnamarbury.com!