Writing and caregiving often exist in tension—and in conversation—with one another. Whether planned or unexpected, short-term or lifelong, caregiving shapes how writers live, work, and create. 

For writers who also serve as caregivers, the challenge of sustaining a creative practice alongside the responsibilities of caring for children, elders, or loved ones with disabilities is both deeply personal and profoundly universal. 

Millay House Rockland will offer the upcoming panel, Writing While Caregiving: Challenges & Strategies, Thursday, Nov. 6, from 6:30-8 p.m. Presented via Zoom, admission is free but registration is required at: https://millayhouserockland.org/events. 

The panel brings together a diverse group of writer-caregivers to share experiences, strategies, and insights from the intersection of caregiving and creativity. The event will be led by the poet Jeneva Stone, who will guide a discussion of the following: How do writer-caregivers keep the flame of their creative lives fed? How do they successfully bank the embers when the inevitable disruptions rumble through? How should they respond when, inevitably, someone questions the ethics of writing about the lives so intimately bound up with their own? 

Jeneva will be joined by fiction writers Sharon Gelman, Brian Trapp, and Grace Spulak, poets Sandra Beasley and Melissa McKinstry, and memoirist Faith S. Holsaert. Each panelist will offer firsthand perspectives on how caregiving has shaped their art and share selections of their own work. The conversation will conclude with an open Q&A, giving attendees the opportunity to engage directly with the speakers. Attendees will also receive a resource handout curated by Jeneva, offering practical support for writers managing caregiving responsibilities. 

This event invites writers, caregivers, and community members to explore how caregiving reshapes the creative process and how writing, in turn, can illuminate the caregiving experience.

Millay House Rockland is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of Edna St. Vincent Millay, as well as supporting literary arts and writers. Central to its mission is the preservation of the birthplace of Millay in Rockland Maine, offering community literary programs, and hosting writers-in-residence in the Rockland double-house where Millay was born.