“Put yourself in my shoes”: Writing, Home, and Displacement

The news is full of images and stories of people having to flee their homes because of war, hunger, or disease. Many of us have normalized the sight to such an extent that we barely notice it anymore. But what does it feel like to actually have to leave your home and everything – also often everyone – you love and care about behind? What would it feel like for all of us, had we been forced to abandon our place of origin, without the choice of going back?

In this writing workshop, “Put yourself in my shoes”: Writing, Home, and Displacement, participants will be led by Nicoletta Demetriou, who will draw from her experience as a “refugee child,” and as an ethnographer of the refugee condition, to ask participants, through a series of prompts and texts, to reflect on these difficult issues, put themselves in the shoes of a displaced person, and write about it.

Nicoletta – an ethnomusicologist, singer, and writing coach from Cyprus – has been teaching similar writing workshops for Greek and Turkish Cypriots walking and writing together in Nicosia’s buffer zone for the past ten years. Writing becomes a means for people to express their feelings, tell their story (first to themselves, on the page, and then to others), be heard, but also listen to the stories of others.

Space is limited and registration is required. Snacks and drinks will be provided. The workshop will be held in the Board Room.

Fee: $30 for members, $40 for nonmembers, Free for Emory students. 

About the Instructor: 

Nicoletta Demetriou was born and raised in Nicosia, the divided capital of Cyprus. She studied music in Thessaloniki, Vienna, and London, obtaining a PhD in Ethnomusicology from SOAS, University of London. She subsequently studied for an MA in Life Writing at the University of East Anglia, and has since combined her passion for music and writing in her teaching. From 2012 to 2019 she was research fellow in ethnomusicology and life writing at Wolfson College, Oxford, and tutor in narrative non-fiction on Oxford’s postgraduate program in Creative Writing. In 2017 she was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar at the Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies at Stockton University, NJ, and in 2019 a Visiting Fellow at the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton. Since 2022, she has been director of Cyprus Music Archive, The Writing Room (a community writing space in Nicosia), and Topos Retreat (a writing retreat on the mountains of Cyprus).