A warm welcome to all of our subscribers! If you’re a new subscriber, we’re delighted to welcome you to the GAB Gazette, a highlight reel from the world of Guided Autobiography for October 2024.
(l to r) Yvonne Chua (Singapore), Ellie Freedman Levin (Laguna Woods, CA), and Georgina Martinez (Los Angeles) “met” in 2023 in Leigh Morrow’s online GAB instructor training. They developed a bond despite their diverse ages and backgrounds, and when Yvonne visited the US in August 2024, they met for lunch in Southern California. One of the gifts of GAB. 😊
In This Issue of the GAB Gazette
Message from Cheryl Svensson, Director: The Birren Center Community Hub Now Open for GAB Instructors!
Announcements/Birren Center News: GAB Summit Update; The 2025 Birren Collection
Featured GABBERs: Alicia Borisonik and Camila Reimers
Books, Blogs, and Podcasts: Brevity; Women’s Voices
Article Roundup: Will AI Kill Creativity?
Collaboration: Birren Center Now a Member of CoGenerate
Message from the Director
The Birren Center Community Hub is Now Open for GAB Instructors!
We are excited to announce the launch of the Birren Center Community Hub, now open to all GAB instructors trained by the Birren Center. We invite you to join us and explore the resources, discussions, and exciting possibilities that lie ahead.
What’s Inside? After subscribing, you will be invited to join the Forum, which is a key part of the Hub. This is where you’ll have the chance to connect with GAB instructors from around the world. The Forum includes several categories to help you get started:
· Welcome: Here you’ll find tips on making the most of the Forum’s features.
· Let’s GAB About It: Our new platform replaces the old GAB Google Group, but with many more possibilities. You can post questions, share resources, search for old threads, and even upload suggestions for classes.
· Tips and Tricks: Discover best practices shared by other instructors.
· Books and More: A space for sharing reading recommendations and related resources.
· Writing Prompts and Exercises: Find new ideas to inspire your GAB classes.
· Official GAB News: Stay informed on what’s happening within the Birren Center—board initiatives, partnerships, grants, courses, and more. It’s your opportunity to interact, ask questions, and collaborate with us on shaping the future of GAB.
Your Participation Matters. The strength of our GAB community depends on all of us. The GAB Community Hub and Forum is a place for you to learn, support each other, and share knowledge. We encourage you to get involved—ask questions, offer advice, and engage in meaningful discussions. Your feedback is vital to improving this space.
Need Help? If you have any questions, need assistance navigating the site, or want to offer feedback, reach out to us at support@thebirrencenter.org. Our support team is ready to help you make the most of your experience in the Hub and the Forum.
A Dynamic Community. Just as Jim Birren reminded us that GAB is a flexible process, our Community Hub is also dynamic. If you have suggestions on what’s working or what could be improved, let us know! This space is built for you, and we’re eager to hear how we can make it even better.
Join Us in Growing the Legacy. The Birren Center has grown from an online course teaching six people at a time to becoming a global organization with over 700 instructors in 32 countries. We’re building partnerships and working to spread the word about GAB and the Birren legacy. By joining the Hub, you’ll be part of this exciting journey, and we’re confident it will be beneficial for all of us.
We look forward to collaborating with you!
Best,
Cheryl and Board Members of The Birren Center for Autobiographical Studies
Announcements
Save the Dates: Dec. 11-13, 2024
The GAB Summit, hosted by Elizabeth Johnston and sponsored by the Birren Center, takes place on December 11 to 13, 2024, from noon to 6 p.m. Eastern Time. This online event, Transformative Storytelling: How GAB Empowers Personal and Professional Growth, will be a fantastic opportunity for all GAB instructors to connect, discuss relevant issues, hear from fellow GAB instructors, and it is FREE. Attendance is open to GAB instructors, anyone who has taken a GAB class, and the general public. It promises to be an enriching event, fostering stronger community bonds and shared learning experiences. Registration to “attend’ the Summit begins on November 27.
The 2025 Birren Collection
Hello, GAB Instructor community,
The GAB Anthology 2025 working group is forming now! I am Sarah White, lead Birren Center Board member on the Anthology project for 2025, following in Emma Fulenwider’s footsteps.
I believe that this Anthology series is one of the most important benefits the Birren Center offers to our instructor community. I have had five students’ work accepted for publication in the previous anthologies, and I saw the joy that becoming a published author brought to them. The book launch events I held for them were good PR opportunities for me as a local GAB Instructor. I want all our instructors to experience the same!
A reminder—anyone certified to teach GAB, and any student who has taken a GAB workshop, is eligible to submit an essay for consideration to be included in the Anthology.
We’ll have the theme for the 2025 anthology decided by end of December of this year. As soon as the theme is chosen, you can start publicizing it to your students, and encourage them to write on it. The call for submissions will open February 1 and close April 30. That’s two months to workshop essays with your students.
If you have theme suggestions or wish to be part of the working group, please contact me: whitesarah.cnf@gmail.com.
Featured GABBERs: Alicia Borisonik and Camila Reimers
Alicia Borisonik (l) and Camila Reimers
NarrArte: Voice Your Journey Through Art
Alicia Borisonik and Camila Reimers graduated from the Birren Center in 2021, and since then, they have taught over 15 courses in both English and Spanish. Their diverse backgrounds enrich their teaching approach, combining music, writing, photography, weaving, and storytelling to create unique learning experiences.
Alicia is a musician, music therapist, nature photographer, and a volunteer at a wildlife center in Costa Rica. Her work focuses on using music to promote well-being and healing. Camila, based in Ottawa, Canada, is a weaver and embroiderer, as well as a writer with six novels and eight books for children. She has been honored with the International Latino Book Award nine times in the United States.
During the pandemic, Alicia worked at a community center in Ottawa, where she sought new ways to engage participants. She discovered the Guided Autobiography (GAB) program and immediately felt a strong connection to it. The center gave both Alicia and Camila the opportunity to first take the program as students and later become certified GAB instructors.
Over a mate drink, Alicia and Camila realized that creativity was central to their personal and professional journeys—whether through music, writing, photography, weaving, radio broadcasting, or theater. This shared passion led them to the idea of combining these creative elements with autobiographical writing. In their presentation to receive their GAB certification, they asked permission to introduce a new idea that would blend their interests, a concept that was well-received by their instructors. Once certified, they began translating the GAB materials into Spanish, and that’s how NarrArte was born.
NarrArte follows the principles of GAB but adds a creative twist. The program encourages participants to write 800 words per session, but it also allows them to share music, photographs, collages, embroidery, or any form of artwork they feel expresses their story. The course is primarily online and designed for Spanish-speaking students, but it has also attracted English-speaking participants from diverse communities, including the LGBTQ+ community and senior citizens.
Alicia now is in Costa Rica, and students have enrolled from various Spanish-speaking countries, including Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Panama, and the Spanish-speaking community in Canada. In the early stages, most students came through referrals from the same community center that introduced Alicia and Camila to the program. These initial courses were offered in English, but as word spread, support from a community center in Toronto further expanded their reach.
After the pandemic, the student base grew to include individuals from different backgrounds. New students found NarrArte through Facebook ads, book fairs, and community groups. This year, Alicia and Camila received a grant from the City of Ottawa to create a cookbook with Spanish-speaking senior citizens in Ottawa. This project has been an enriching experience, highlighting how food brings up memories that are deeply tied to personal stories. The book Writing Your Legacy by Cheryl Svensson and Richard Campbell, helped guide the exploration of questions sent to the students during the four-week course.
NarrArte charges a fee for the six-week course, but offers scholarships for students who cannot pay, ensuring that the program remains accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial situation. When the program is sponsored, students can participate free of charge thereby reaching a wider community.
For more information, you can visit Alicia and Camila’s website or contact them via email.
Books, Blogs, and Podcasts
Brevity
(From Sarah White, Secretary of the Birren Board)
A resource I find helpful in teaching GAB is the Brevity blog: Alongside [Brevity’s] primary mission to publish outstanding contemporary flash nonfiction, Brevity also works to provide diverse resources for writers and teachers of the flash form. Brevity’s resources for teaching are also great: https://brevitymag.com/teaching-brevity/
Where the interests of GAB Instructors overlap with the fine folks of Brevity is our emphasis on writing just 2-3 pages. The brief GAB essays our students write exemplify flash nonfiction: “flash” because of their short page count, “nonfiction” because we’re writing the truth of our lives.
While GAB instruction doesn’t emphasize writing craft, in order to be accessible to beginning and/or underconfident writers, Brevity offers great resources for writers who want to improve their craft.
Women’s Voices
(From Helen Davidson Women Rowing North: Writing Our Life Stories)
At times, I struggle to put words into promotional materials that clearly describe the powerful process that guided autobiography offers. A participant in my alumni group, Linda, recently wrote a blog post, Women's Voices, that captures the GAB experience, including the extra benefits of friendship, writing routines, and the universality of women's voices. You may find some promotional gems in this piece of writing.
Article Roundup
Will AI Kill Creativity?
"Will AI kill our creativity? It could – if we don’t start to value and protect the traits that make us human," says Cameron Shackell, from Queensland University of Technology. Find a link to this article on the GAB Facebook page.
Collaboration
Birren Center Is Now a Member of CoGenerate—a Multigenerational Force for Good
The Birren Center for Guided Autobiographical Studies has been selected as a member of the CoGen Solutions to Social Isolation & Loneliness: Innovators' Community of Practice, a program of CoGenerate. This is an example of our efforts to build affiliations with other organizations that can be beneficial for our instructor community.
CoGenerate envisions a world where older and younger people join forces to solve problems, bridge divides and co-create the future. Its programs accelerate cogenerational solutions to pressing social problems. CoGenerate aims to build a leadership community of people, organizations and funders to scale this work and sustain it—and the Birren Center will be part of it. Our missions share a common theme of connecting people across generations and divides, expanding their respect, empathy, and wisdom.
CoGenerate is convening the Innovators’ Community of Practice, a free, virtual, five-week learning experience for innovators and disruptors interested in adopting or growing cogenerational strategies for reducing social isolation and loneliness. The hour-long sessions at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET on five consecutive Thursdays from October 10-November 7, 2024, will provide opportunities to learn from experts and one another. Innovators with the most promising models will be featured in a major report to funders and the field: https://cogenerate.org/sil/
If you are interested in representing the GAB community at these events, please let a Birren Center board member know and we’ll include you when we receive more information about this series.
Editor’s Note: If you have an idea for a feature for the GAB Gazette please email Stephen Dolainski at steve91604@gmail.com. Please use the subject line GAB Gazette Idea.