Event Category Archives: Regional Workshop

Waiting for Words: An Advent Writing Workshop with Lauren Winner

Waiting and generating; patience and urgency—these are all ingredients to the writing life, and, indeed, to the spiritual life. In this five-day workshop, we will enter the season of Advent with prayerful attention and focus, and we will both wait patiently for our words and undertake reading and writing exercises that summon our words. Some of our time will be devoted to being creatively nourished through short readings, and through engagement with visual art, music, and other artistic media; some of our time will be devoted to generative writing exercises. Some of our time, we'll be together in a group; some time, in solitude. Arrive looking for inspiration and nourishment, ready to write and to listen to the Spirit. Writers of all levels welcome.

Out of the depths: writing prayer: a poetry workshop with Marie Howe

In this workshop, guided by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Marie Howe, we will read and write prayer poems. Each day we’ll read poems written by poets from the past as well as contemporary poets. Looking closely at the poems – at tone and diction and image, and line and syntax and rhythm etc. ) – we will broaden the possibilities for our own voices. We will practice radical receptivity. We take time to generate our own prayer poems each day and have the opportunity to share with each other.

Reading and Writing with Joan Didion (a workshop led by Alissa Wilkinson)

Joan Didion often said that the way a writer says things is even more revealing than what they say. What can we learn about the work of writing from her? In this workshop, we’ll devote a week to Didion’s work, particularly concentrating on her essays, discovering the ways she approached specific craft challenges. We’ll practice close reading of Didion’s work. We’ll write.  And we’ll workshop our work. (The work we’ll workshop will be work we generate during our time together — participants will not circulate already-written work ahead of time.) Long-standing devotees of Didion and those new to her work are warmly welcome!

Fifty Pairs of Eyes: Creating Characters in Fiction, Non-Fiction and PoetryFifty Pairs of Eyes: Creating Characters in Fiction, Non-Fiction and Poetry with Stephanie Paulsell

This workshop will focus on cultivating practices that help us see further around the people about whom we write: learning from both visual and literary arts about how to bring the humanity of our characters closer to the reader, how to navigate the visible and the invisible, and how to shape portraits in words that reverence human dignity.

Lauren WinnerWaiting for Words: An Advent Writing Workshop with Lauren Winner

Waiting and generating; patience and urgency—these are all ingredients to the writing life. In this five-day workshop, we will enter the season of Advent with prayerful attention and focus, and we will both wait patiently for our words and undertake reading and writing exercises that summon our words. Registration is closed: all workshop spaces have been filled.

Regenerate Your Spirit, Generate New Writing

Breath, rhythm, movement, deep listening—these are the skills fundamental to writing that are often ignored. Inspired by Genesis 1:2: “And the breath of God swept over the face of the waters,” this workshop will immerse participants in exercises that can help writers transform “wild and waste” into form and beauty. Guided breathing, movement, rhythm, and listening experiences will flow into related writing opportunities. Join us at Regenerate Your Spirit, Generate New Writing to refresh your spirit, create fresh work, true your voice, and deepen your writing practice.
Registration is closed: all workshop spaces have been filled.

Ellie RoscherEmbodied Writing: Moving and Creating in Community

Writing and Yoga are two powerful, transformational spiritual practices that can bring us closer to God, ourselves, and each other. As a writer and yoga teacher, Ellie Roscher loves to pair writing, breath and movement in a way that invites us to inhabit our bodies and experience deeper embodiment. In this one day writing workshop, Ellie will lead participants through simple breath work, body movement, writing prompts and discussion to unlock and explore our bodies as writers.
Registration is now open.