by Ann Kathryn Kelly and Angela Mackintosh
R/SL is more than a community. It’s a dynamic ecosystem for “writers, seekers, and explorers who are ready to bring their fullest selves to the page, and beyond.” The website points out that it’s different from other writing communities because it recognizes that “storying”—yes, Nicole’s own word to describe the creative process she teaches for self-discovery on the path from drafting to editing to publication—works best when craft instruction is offered in an environment that validates the process.
Nicole is an award-winning essayist and co-author of Bloom: Letters on Girlhood. Over the past decade, Nicole’s unique approach to teaching CNF has helped thousands of writers sidestep blocks, improve their craft, and secure their first publications and/or literary awards.
Since launching in February 2026, R/SL has welcomed several hundred members into the free space, and a growing cohort in the paid membership area. Paying members can take advantage of Nicole’s signature program materials that include, among other resources, the mini course “Spark Your Story Method” as well as 6 deeper-dive modules on themes of Origin Stories, The Emergent Self, The Body, Where the Heart Is, The Bigger World, and Nature + The Spirit. Members also enjoy rotating live events monthly that include generative workshops and guest experts, as well as group write-ins and weekly challenges inside the online collective, aimed at keeping the creative fire alive.
Angela and I took a look around this dynamic writing ecosystem recently to find out what makes this one so special and why it may be a great choice for our readers, to help you enhance (or recommit) to your writing practice. In fact, WOW! contest winner Carole Vasta Folley (who won first place in our Q1 2026 CNF essay contest), is a founding member of R/SL and credits the writing collective for “keeping my fingers on the keyboard, and more importantly, my desire to write at the forefront. Simply put, I am writing and submitting more because of R/SL.”
WOW: Nicole, R/SL is, in your own words, “a space for brave, honest ‘storying’ alongside grounded self-inquiry and creative practice, held in community.” We’d love to hear what inspired you to create the R/evolution Story Lab?
Nicole: Hi Ann and Angela, and thanks so much for inviting me to chat with you about R/SL. I believe there’s an urgent need for healthy, welcoming and inclusive creative spaces for writers whose subject matter is their own lives. I knew I was helping writers who enrolled in my programs because they were meeting their big writing goals, but once a class ended, there was no easy way for everyone in the group to stay connected. Building a space where the conversations could continue would help everyone, myself included, keep up the creative energy and momentum!
But I also believe it’s time for a new paradigm in memoir. I call my community the R/evolution Story Lab for a reason. I created the space I wish already existed for creative nonfiction and memoir writers, centered on creativity, craft and joy—because writing can and should be playful, curious and fun. Yet, that isn’t always what comes to mind when we think of writing memoir, is it?
We’ve been handed the myth of the tortured artist again and again. I’m tired of this notion that if you haven’t bled, you won’t be read. Writing has been an incredibly powerful tool for healing in my own life and the lives of the writers I’ve mentored over the years. But very few writers have been taught that they can maintain their peace while crafting work that addresses their pain. Showing writers how to do that mindfully is part of R/SL, too.
WOW: Love this: if you haven’t bled, you won’t be read. We agree, wholeheartedly! Maintaining one’s peace, while crafting work that addresses pain, can and should be a central part of the process. So, can fiction writers and poets join your community, or is it just for creative nonfiction writers?
Nicole: Yes, absolutely! R/evolution Story Lab is an inclusive learning and growth hub for anyone using writing as a tool for transformation via personal narrative. Although our focus is on creative nonfiction, our members are also novelists and poets and playwrights. That’s what makes R/SL such a beautiful place! We are a living, breathing, co-created community of folks from different countries, backgrounds, training and disciplines. What makes each of us unique is our superpower and makes our contributions to the group so meaningful.
WOW: It sounds like R/SL was designed very intentionally. Can you share how the community helps writers who are struggling to commit to a regular writing practice?
Nicole: R/SL was carefully designed to meet the needs of writers at different growth stages, as they pursue their individual journeys and varied goals that may shift over time. I envisioned our community as a place of inspiration and belonging, with education and support to continue each member’s ongoing development as writers and creators.
But there’s always something going on inside R/SL to inspire new writing, from our weekly 100-word challenges, to the coursework, to invitations to share intentions, progress and wins. Our “Revolutionaries”—that’s what we call each other—share book recommendations, submission opportunities, and are starting to form smaller groups. Just this week a few of our members decided to create a space to go through the course materials together. Being that some members are in different time zones, they are looking at using video and audio notes in the space. R/SL is a living, co-created community by design, and it’s exciting to see members shaping it to meet their needs and desires.
WOW: One of the unique things about R/SL is that your community is facilitated by a trauma-informed Community Manager trained in nervous system regulation practices. What are these practices and how can they help writers?
Nicole: Many writers come to creative nonfiction with difficult stories to tell, which is why I wanted everyone to feel held and supported by a trauma-informed Community Manager who could maintain a nervous system-regulated space. Marisa’s training in yoga, breathwork, and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) support Revolutionaries in staying grounded and supported when the writing gets tender or emotionally activating. She has worked with folks from across diverse groups, which was important to me. I really want writers whose voices and stories haven’t been well represented in publishing to feel safe in our space to write and share with us.
Marisa is also a board-certified genetic counselor who has spent two decades sitting with people in some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives—holding space for grief, fear, and the search for language when experiences feel unspeakable. That capacity translates directly into how she shows up in R/SL: the integration of science and somatic awareness means she isn’t just offering calming techniques intuitively. She understands why they work and how things like body-doubling support our members in our co-writing sessions.
"Recently, two of our members won creative nonfiction contests, one of whom began her award-winning piece in an R/SL workshop I taught in February! But what makes R/SL so wonderful is that sense of belonging we ache for as writers. We need the company of others who understand the work."
WOW: How fascinating! What a special offering for your community members. R/evolution Story Lab also offers writers a free space where they can connect and participate in a monthly writing challenge, but can you tell us a bit more about what it’s like to experience R/SL as a full paid member?
Nicole: I want R/SL to be the place everyone wants to sign onto first thing when they get up in the morning, whether they’re in the free or the paid membership spaces. Marisa describes the experience of catching up on what’s happening in R/SL as “joyscrolling”—the polar opposite of the doomscrolling we both were prone to do at the start of our days prior to launching R/SL.
Writers in the paid spaces get a premium experience. They have access to all of my live and previously recorded training, available inside R/SL. They are able to form smaller groups to share work, form a book club, or whatever delights them and supports their writing. We create new spaces as we think of new ways to support our Revolutionaries; for example, we recently created a Library where paid members can share their published work. And whereas free members are invited to participate in one 100-word story challenge a month, our paid members do weekly writing challenges and meet regularly for scheduled live writing sessions. Although the cohort is smaller, there is much more engagement and discussion happening in our paid spaces.
As for what the actual experience is like, imagine being an active part of the shifts and breakthroughs happening inside R/SL every week. So exciting! One of our founding members pointed out that not only are Revolutionaries incredibly supportive, but hugely talented. Recently, two of our members won creative nonfiction contests, one of whom began her award-winning piece in an R/SL workshop I taught in February! But what makes R/SL so wonderful is that sense of belonging we ache for as writers. We need the company of others who understand the work. Writing can feel like such an isolated experience. It can be really hard to do alone!
WOW: Agree. That sense of belonging is so important and can be so hard to find, and when we do, it feels like such a gift!
Nicole: Absolutely! Recently one of our Revolutionaries shared that R/SL is the group she’d been trying to find. She’d been wanting to work with me for years and was also trying to manifest a writing group where she really felt she belonged. Her other writing groups were focused on technique, but something felt like it was missing. After one of our write-in sessions she realized she’d been missing a space that nurtured creativity, authenticity and technique. I thought the word authenticity spoke volumes. There’s no “performing” in R/SL, and I think that is a big part of what creates a sense of belonging. It’s a safe space where we can just be real about our lives.
I’ve been asking myself what it is about our community that makes it a place where authenticity can thrive. I think it comes down to creating an environment where it’s safe to take emotional risks. I show up as my unmasked self, which helps others feel it’s safe to do the same. I’ll give you an example! At a write-in I shared my dating app profile which was written in the form of a Dear Universe letter. I was nervous to share it because it felt vulnerable, even though I’m used to sharing a fair bit about my own life, including stories about being a queer, polyamorous, late diagnosed neurodivergent woman. Sharing my Dear Universe letter led to a lively conversation about whether or not a dating app profile could be considered creative nonfiction. I loved receiving input from the group on what I could add or change or expand to make it publishable!
WOW: A fantastic example, Nicole. Thanks for sharing that with us! When you reached out through email, you said something that really spoke to us: “I believe by writing about the past we empower ourselves to shape the future. The stories we tell ourselves literally create our reality!” Love this! Can you share a little more?
Nicole: I think it’s really important that we all understand that our stories hold a lot of power, a fact rooted in neuroscience. Our internal narratives are the stories we live by. They literally create our reality, so when they go unexamined, or unwritten, we are driven by stories that may not belong to us. Inherited narratives, cultural narratives, and our own fractured narratives inform our perspective and as a result, our behaviour, and what we experience—often as patterns.
Storying is the process of writing personal narrative as a tool for transformation. It’s about more than healing. It’s a form of identity work, which runs much deeper than processing a difficult experience. I wouldn’t be who I am or living the amazing life I’ve created if I hadn’t discovered its power. Storying can help us open and shift our perspectives, allowing us to see what we couldn’t see before. I like to say that although we can’t change what happened to us, we can change our relationship to the past by writing our stories. Where there was no resolution in life, we can seek resolution to an artistic problem: how will I end this story, and what, in the end, did it mean to me? When we uncover meaning and let an old story go, a kind of clearing takes place, and in that new space where confusion or grief or incomprehension lived, new stories can be written.
I’d like to go back to the Dear Universe letter I wrote as my profile on a dating app, which listed all the qualities I was seeking in a partner. Technically speaking, from a creative nonfiction perspective, I could argue that it was a kind of list essay! It felt like an impossible list, very specific. Two months after writing it, I met someone who was an ideal match. They were everything I’d asked for, with the exception of one minor detail: they were one inch shorter than my desired 6-foot-tall. I laughed when he told me he was “only” 5-11. Everything else, though?! Not a dealbreaker!
Did storying manifest this person? I like to believe it did! But what I am 100% convinced of is the role storying played in my ability to greet this new connection and be ready to experience what would unfold. I’m absolutely certain I could not be living our story right now if I was still carrying around my old baggage. I really struggled to give and receive romantic love in the past, or seek and experience intimacy in healthy ways. Writing those stories is a gift I gave myself, freeing me from how old narratives held me back in other parts of my life, too.
"It’s really important that we all understand that our stories hold a lot of power, a fact rooted in neuroscience. Our internal narratives are the stories we live by. They literally create our reality."
WOW: You recently held a workshop that introduced your StoryWork framework. Can you tell us how you came up with the name, and guide us through some of the principles for your StoryWork manifesto?
Nicole: Thanks for this question! It relates back to the new paradigm of memoir I spoke to at the beginning of our interview: this vision I have for writing to be a source of power rather than centered on pain. My StoryWork is a guide to reorienting us as writers, redirecting our attention to alternate sources of inspiration and fuel, rather than trauma, so we aren’t taxing our nervous systems to get the writing done.
StoryWork is not avoidance, or an attempt to bypass the reality of our difficult experiences. I strongly believe that writing is a tool for healing the past and shaping the future. But I also believe we can get the relief, the catharsis, the transformation we seek, by approaching our stories in ways that don’t recreate trauma on the page, thus triggering ourselves and our readers.
I’ve called my framework StoryWork because it is a transformative practice that belongs alongside other forms of self-care, self-expression and healing—like artwork, breathwork, and spellwork! I’m still at work on my StoryWork manifesto, which I’ll publish on Substack, but here are a few principles that guide my storying practice.
Stories aren’t linear. Your pain isn’t the story. Desire is fuel.
I’ll be expanding on these principles in Substack articles, too! But curious WOW! readers can tune into my free workshop replay right now, that walks writers through a transformative StoryWork process.
WOW: We look forward to reading those! Inside your community, writers can offer feedback on your 100-word story challenges. You call this practice “attentive noticing.” What does that entail?
Nicole: One of the ways I differ from other writing instructors is that I promote attentive noticing as an alternative to workshopping. I believe it’s important, especially in the early drafting stage, to receive a reflection from an attentive reader on what is emerging, and what is working. Writers often can’t see their own work and believe, incorrectly, that their work is terrible when it isn’t!
Attentive noticing is like attentive listening; we pay attention to how a line lands, notice moments that feel alive with heat, and share that with the writer. It’s about what is working well, and what we’d love to see more of in the piece. In practice, it can be as simple as repeating back a line that resonated. Attentive noticing is so valuable because it offers clues to what’s next without shutting a writer down, which so often happens with workshopping—especially among writers whose genre isn’t creative nonfiction. Our stories are smart, and so are we! Often in conversation, we find the way forward on our own. And when it’s time for revision, there are resources in R/SL to help writers learn how to identify, step by step, what would strengthen their work.
WOW: I love that! Do you have any exciting events in the works our writers should know about? And can non-members join events hosted in R/evolution Story Lab?
Nicole: There are always exciting things coming up in R/SL! I’m currently creating a workshop on creative nonfiction as a manifestation practice. I’m very excited to share how I’ve been experimenting with using writing as a tool for visualizing and actualizing the lives we desire. I’m also looking forward to hosting some incredible guests for our upcoming Teach and Talks, including Theresa Kishkan, whose memoir, The Art of Looking Back was just published through Thornapple Press. Her book retraces her experience being cast as muse to a much older painter who became obsessed with her when she was an emerging poet in her early 20s. It’s a beautifully crafted memoir and I could not put this book down.
And yes! Anyone is welcome to attend our R/SL events as non-members for a small fee. The best way to learn about what’s happening in our community is to join us in the free space, which is also a great opportunity to start connecting with writers and participate in some writing challenges to get the creativity flowing.
Our thanks to Nicole for an inspiring chat! Anytime is a great time to recommit to your writing practice, but it’s even better when you can do it among a community of supportive, enthusiastic writers. Find your tribe, and get started for free! And if you decide to join Nicole’s story revolution as a full member, enter coupon code STORYWORK at checkout for a 25% savings. Start exploring all that’s waiting for you, inside the R/evolution Story Lab.
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