by Byron Turner
An hour ago
We're thrilled to celebrate WritingWorkshops.com alum LaDonna Witmer, whose essay "A Girl As A Pyrotechnic Display" is now live in How I Learned, the acclaimed personal-essay series created and hosted by Blaise Allysen Kearsley.
In just a few hundred words, LaDonna excavates a childhood inside a high-control fundamentalist faith, a world where, as she writes, "desire was not a thing allowed a girl."
We're proud to have been one small stop in LaDonna's writing practice. The journey is entirely hers; we just feel lucky to have shared a stretch of it.
LaDonna was a newspaper journalist, advertising copywriter, brand voice expert, editorial director, public speaker, and poetry slammer. These days, she tends her dogs, dahlias, and daughter on a small quinta in rural Portugal, where she writes essays, poems, and memoir, with work published or forthcoming in KHÔRA, Literary Mama, Zero Readers, and Take the Fruit: An Anthology of Religious Trauma. She's also at work on a book about fundamentalism and fire, and if this essay is any indication, it will be one to watch for.
Congratulations, LaDonna! Go read her essay, and follow where she goes next.
Every writer's path is their own — but no one has to walk it alone. At WritingWorkshops.com, you'll find a global community of writers, expert instruction from working authors and editors, and a track record of students who've gone on to publish in the journals, anthologies, and series they admire. Whether you're drafting your first essay or finishing your first book, your next chapter starts here.
