Creativists in Dialogue talks with Laura Zam: an author, a speaker, a certified trauma professional, a sexuality educator whose work focuses on sexual healing and preventing violation. Her writing appears in The New York Times, Salon, The Huffington Post, and The Forward as well as in seven book anthologies.
In 2013, Laura’s one-person play about healing in the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse, Married Sex, was presented at the New York International Fringe Festival and Off-Broadway (United Solo). Other one-person plays, keynotes, and speeches have been presented at The Kennedy Center, the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, The National Theatre, Columbia University, American Psychological Association, and many other venues in the U.S. and abroad. Media outlets that have covered Zam’s work include NPR, The Washington Post, PBS, The Huffington Post, The Guardian UK, The Prague Post, and others.
As an extension of her art practice, Laura has been conducting storytelling workshops with trauma survivors for the past twenty years, working with post-war teens from Bosnia, young adults from the Middle East, wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and victims of sexual violation. Workshop venues include the Omega Center, Walter Reed Army Hospital, and the DC Rape Crisis Center.
Grants include a Playwriting Fellowship from Brown University, Amiri Baraka Literary Prize, an Open Society Fund grant (Soros Foundation), a Tennessee Williams Fellowship, and three Artist Fellowships from DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Laura has taught at Brown University, UC Berkeley, George Mason, and other colleges. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Brown University, where she studied with Pulitzer Prize winners Paula Vogel and Nilo Cruz. She’s a member of the National Speakers Association and the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists.
For more go to Laura Zam.
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A Conversation with Laura Zam