Friedman's workshop will be held on February 5, from 4 to 6 p.m. in Founders Room of Mead Hall on the Drew campus. The author will offer writing tips for participants, including how to find a "narrative arc" and how to use the tools of fiction in an autobiography.

After graduating from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Friedman successfully published both fiction and nonfiction works. But a contract for her first non-fiction book, Writing Past Dark, led to her first experience with writer's block. So serious was her problem that she consulted a psychotherapist for help.

Friedman's book, The Thief of Happiness: The Story of an Extraordinary Psychotherapy, explores the author's seven-year struggle to regain her ability to write creatively.

Reviewers have called the book "compulsively readable" because it opens a window into the process of psychotherapy, chronicles the author's frustration and, ultimately, celebrates her liberation and ability to write again.