Family Artifact Workshops available
I’ve taught several workshops on the topics of identifying, interpreting and writing about family artifacts, and I can customize in-person or virtual workshops for you. I’m willing to discuss teaching a workshop to small groups or as part of larger writing, genealogy or history events. I’ve worked with teachers, private groups, professional writers at conferences, and novices.
Price depends on scope of the workshop and travel needs. Inquire at evelyn.funda@usu.edu.
Inspiration for my workshops:
When both my parents died abruptly in the fall of 2001, I was left with a house filled with 45 years worth of objects—stuff that I had to sort through. Each thing required a decision: keep, store, give away, or dispose of. And as I sifted through the objects, I began to see some of these things as artifacts, full of potential meaning about family members’ lives. This meaning was unvarnished, evocative in some way—more than the sum of the artifacts’ parts. They were the history and the character made portable. I soon realized these items from their home also consoled me because they allowed me to believe that my relationship to these two people was unfinished, still a living thing full of unpredictable turns and revelations. They (that is, both the artifacts, and through them, my family) could still “tell” me things. Relationships need a degree of reciprocity, give and take, and I found that through interpreting their personal items because those often mundane objects shimmered with an electricity that I had to pay attention to.
Some of my family artifacts:
Past Workshops:
“Interpreting Family Artifacts while Writing Auto/Biography” at the Mountain West Center–Evans Awards Writers’ Workshop for Auto/Biography. Salt Lake City, October 26, 2019.
“Identifying and Interpreting Family Artifacts” at the Czechoslovak Genealogical Society International Conference (virtual). October, 2021.
“Writing Family History from Artifacts” at the Brigham City Museum Gallery. (Funded by Utah Humanities Council),September 19, 2009.
“Mysterious Artifacts: Memoir Writing in a Rural Setting” at the symposium “Passports and Passages: Writing as a Bridge between High School, College and the World: College of Southern Idaho Writing Symposium,” Hailey, Idaho, May 1, 2015.
“Writing from Family Artifacts” at Western Wyoming Community College’s “Arlene and Louise Wesswick Lecture Series in the Humanities and Education,” Rock Springs, Wyoming, March 2009.
evelynfunda.com 