Women Breast Cancer Patients Focus of New Oral History

Writers county-wide working on project

Inkberry and the Reach Beyond Breast Cancer program have recently partnered to collaborate on an oral history project with female cancer patients. Inspired by a similar program begun in Providence, Rhode Island, this initiative will partner women cancer patients with local writers. The writers will transcribe the patients’ stories and will work together with them to edit the transcription. At the end of each session, the books will be bound by Inkberry and given back to the narrators.

Writers county-wide are helping with the project. Michelle Gillett of Stockbridge, Judith Monachina of Great Barrington, Sarah Hudson of Tyringham, Joyce Lazarus of Williamstown, and Blake Walton of Northampton have signed on for the first round, and other writers have expressed interest.

According to Carol Guernsey, coordinator of the REACH program run out of North Adams Regional Hospital, “The intention of the project is to provide a therapeutic experience for women with cancer.” Guernsey and Kate Abbott, community outreach director of Inkberry, are coodinators of this initiative. Carol developed this program with Rachel Barenblat and Emily Banner, Inkberry’s executive and artistic directors, after witnessing success with similar programs elsewhere.

Their plan was to match up women with cancer who were interested in the project with a writer for interviews. She would be able to say whatever she wanted to, in her own personal book.

Guernsey said, “Some women in Providence just talked about memories, just things in their lives that they wanted to preserve in writing. Some used it more to process their experience of having cancer. Some had kept journals and used this as a way of further developing their journal into a book. Some who knew they were going to die used it as a way to write things down they wanted their families to have. Some people did this as a way of having something for themselves, something highly personal they would probably never show to anybody else, other people did this to share with families or close friends or possibly send to everyone they know. We’re expecting that our women in the Berkshires will have a similar array and when they meet with the writers they will set the tone.”

There has been a great deal of interest among potential participants. REACH and Inkberry found their first five writers in about a week. These five writers are currently in the process of receiving training and being paired up with cancer patients. The plan is for the pairs to meet at a mutually convienient location two or three times for two hours each for interviews. The writer will listen to the patient talk about whatever they want to record. They can give scrapbook items like photographs or favorite poems too.

The writers will transcribe these interviews, and the whole process is confidential. After the writers work with the narrators to edit the transcriptions, the text will be bound and presented back to the narrators. The whole process is expected to take between two and three months from start to finish. The writers receive a small stipend to cover expenses.

This is Abbott’s first project as community outreach director at Inkberry. She’s excited about the project because of what it can do for the community. She said, “If you’re in pain, being able to talk about it helps. I agree with Rachel and Emily - writing has great power to comfort and to transform and to heal. I know that being able to communicate a painful experience can help to ease the pain. I imagine it could be very therapeutic for cancer patients to communicate their struggle and have something to present of themselves that they can hand on.”

Michelle Gillett, Contributing Editor for the Women’s Times and Berkshire Eagle columnist, lives in Stockbridge and is a writer for this project. Her mother and a close friend died of cancer, and her sister-in-law had breast cancer, so she wanted to use her skills to help other people with cancer.

She said, “It may be hard. Luckily I have been with people with breast cancer and have talked to them about it, so I don’t think I’m going to be anxious. I feel comfortable with the conversation. I think often in society we’re in denial and we become complacent about things like breast cancer - so that’s why I think it’s important for these stories to be kept alive for the people who have these experiences. So that they don’t have to feel that they have to deny their experience or be silent about it. I think more and more we need to look at things we can do specifically for the people who have had breast cancer, so they don’t feel isolated.”

Gillett hopes to continue participating in the project in the future. She hopes it will grow, and sees this as just the start-up.

Guernsey also has hopes for expanding this program in the future. She said, “I’d love to see it grow. I’d love to be able to fund it annually. And there’s several possibilities of ways that we could do that, although I think it will always have to be grant funded. I’d like to be able to pair up as many writers and women as we can. I’d also like to be able to extend this to men as well.” The project is currently made possible by a grant from the Lance Armstrong Foundation.