As part of The Big Read, the YMCA Writer's Voice is offering several writing workshops and reading discussion groups. The half-day writing workshops will use "Love Medicine," a Louise Erdrich novel, as the writing example. Instructors will help participants create their own work based on family history, memoir, narrative style, point of view, figurative language, character development and symbolism.

Burt Bradley and John Giarrizzo present "Tribal Elders, Town Elders: Drawing and Poetry Portraits" from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Yellowstone Art Museum. The cost is $25; bring a sack lunch or snacks.

Poet Bradley and visual artist Giarrizzo will present their portraits in a workshop discussion about the process of interviewing, drawing and writing about the elders of our communities. Bradley and Giarrizzo are on the faculty of Northwest College in Powell, Wyo.

Russell Rowland and Diane Arkava present "Writing for Your Life" from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 7 at Pictograph Cave State Park Visitors Center. The cost is $25; bring a sack lunch or snacks.

Rowland, author of the novels "In Open Spaces" and "The Watershed Years", and Arkava, social worker and therapist, will lead a workshop which explores the value of keeping a journal. The workshop will cover the history of journaling all the way back to the days of hieroglyphics, and present exercises in both writing and processing what you write to find your own personal story and what it means to you.

To register for the workshops, contact the YMCA Writer's Voice at 248-1685, ext. 231 or corbyskinner@-yahoo.com. Checks should be mailed to YMCA Writer's Voice, 402 N. 32nd St., Billings, MT 59101. Scholarships are available.

For more information, go to www.neabigread.org/-communities.php.