WASHINGTON – The students in the Saturday morning class trickle in and, as they introduce themselves around a table, reveal far more intimate biographies than just name and hometown.

One confesses to demons he struggles to control. Another said he’s here to find a community. “Forgive me,” an Iraq war veteran begins haltingly. “I have to use notes. I have a brain injury.”

The students are participants in a veterans writing seminar at George Washington University, where for two days they immerse themselves in the basics of the craft and learn how to plumb for therapeutic and creative purposes their experiences in places like Iraq, Bosnia and Vietnam. The class is a noncredit weekend seminar open to veterans and their relatives, but the university plans to soon adapt the model into a for-credit semester-long course for student veterans.