http://www.writersretreat.com

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IN THIS EDITION

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1.       WRITING IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL

2.       THE CHOICE IS YOURS

3.       CREATING A ONE PERSON PLAY

4.       UPCOMING WRITING WORKSHOPS/CLINIC

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1. WRITING IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL

           Writing is a solitary endeavor and one that often takes as much as it gives. Those of us in pursuit of publishing have to keep so many literary balls in the air while working on our craft that sometimes the technical demands overtake the creative ones. With so much outside (as well as self-induced) pressure, we sometimes forget why we decided to write in the first place. That’s why it’s important to find ways to renew our love of writing.

Avoiding burn-out and renewing enthusiasm for the joy of written expression are only part of the inspiration behind the upcoming writing workshop titled “Writing is Good for the Soul”, to be held October 17-19, 2008 in Folly Beach, South Carolina. The weekend workshop is geared to help writers connect with and free up our creativity; take the everyday pressures off; and find a new way of looking at our work and our lives. Using writing as a form of expressive meditation, this workshop allows writers to delve deeply into who we are: our minds, our bodies and our spirits.

The weekend begins with a Friday evening session titled ‘Connecting With the Spirit of Nature’ where participants will write from the senses in a class held at the ocean’s edge. Saturday includes an all-day workshop titled ‘The Story of Your Soul’s Journey’ and Sunday ends with ‘Connecting With Your Creative Spirit.’ The workshop, taught by Creative Writing teacher Mary Ann Henry, has proved to be hugely popular in the Carolina Lowcountry where it is held.

“I’m a journalist by trade and I never write poetry”, stated Will Beckett, a participant at a recent spiritual writing workshop.  “But I was surprised at how much poetry came roaring forth.” He added, “I re-read some of my writing at the end of the day and I wondered ‘Who wrote that?’ It felt really good.”  Another participant, Sandy Morehouse, spoke of how she doubted her own ability to access her creativity. “I’ve had trouble writing from the heart. I get caught up in expectations and I keep second-guessing myself. But during the workshop, I just let it rip. And the writing showed that new level of confidence.”

The connection between a person’s sense of spirituality and their creativity has long been of interest to the creator of the workshop, Mary Ann Henry. “I try to create, above all, an atmosphere of trust within the group. I let everyone know right away that they’re safe with me, with each other, with themselves. And to see the growth that a person makes in such a short time is thrilling to me as a teacher and a writer.”

Held in an ocean-front location on beautiful Folly Beach, just minutes from historic Charleston, South Carolina, ‘Writing is Good for the Soul’ promises to be one of the most unique learning experiences available to writers this year.

See details at http://www.writersretreat.com/spiritualwriting.htm.

To register, please call Mary Ann Henry directly at 843-437-1934 or email her at maryannhenry@writersretreat.com or complete our online form at

http://www.writersretreat.com/workshopformSC.htm

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2. THE CHOICE IS YOURS!

Are you looking for a space where you can shut out the world and dig in deeply internally? The Writers’ Retreat provides the perfect balance of leaving you alone and at the same time making sure you have everything you need while staying with us.  The Writers’ Retreat offers nine year-round retreat locations to choose from:

Québec, Canada (Headquarters);

Ouray, Colorado;

Corralitos near Santa Cruz, California;

Folly Beach, South Carolina;

Craftsbury, Vermont;

Ojochal, Costa Rica;

Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific Coast of México.

Please visit our website at www.WritersRetreat.com and click on one of the locations for more details and to reserve your private studio.

If you are contemplating a business opportunity in the literary world, contact us today to learn more about starting and operating a Writers’ Retreat in your area.

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3.  CREATING A ONE PERSON PLAY

By Adilah Barnes

More and more writer/actors are beginning to combine their talents to create one person or “solo” plays. They are more commonly called “one person shows.” Some choose to create historical figures to portray, while still others draw from their own personal lives to create pieces that are sometimes termed “personal stories.” I have conceived both but for this article I want to focus on writing personal stories. In essence, I see this genre of writing as autobiographical or memoir writing in nature.

As Co-founder and Executive Producer of the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival, I have produced over 400 solo artists from around the globe. They have ranged from first love, rape, family, breast cancer, culture, incest, identity, menopause, death, the workplace, the life of an actor, and many, many others.

I have also taught writing workshops such as From Thought to Pen, Connecting the Inner Dots, and From Stage to Page. In my workshops, the bottom line is first getting stories on paper that actor/writers want to tell.

Some say, “I want to create a one person show on my life but I do not know where to begin!”

I say, “Start with childhood memories.”

Our youthful days are filled with a plethora of memories, charged with emotions that are both pleasant and painful. One way to activate those memories is to use the senses to excavate our past experiences.

For example, as a writing instructor, I have an exercise I use when teaching solo writing workshops where I use guided imagery that makes use of all five senses, one sense at a time. In one group I taught, I guided my students who laid outstretched on the floor as they sensorally went back to their youth. One student in that workshop responded to the sense of touch with a memory of the feel of shag carpeting underneath him on his family’s New Rochelle, New York living room floor.

He remembered how he and his brother’s played “slow motion” football on that green shag carpet without ever disturbing any of his mother’s furniture or fine crystal. From that exercise, he activated the memory of that slow motion football game. That memory also connected him to his individual relationships with his brothers. From that exercise he ultimately created a one-man show called, My Boys and Me, a very compelling piece that explores his relationship with his brothers, both then and now.

Another way to activate childhood memories is to chronologically explore the past, either by age or grades in school. I personally prefer going grade by grade because I have remembered in great detail each of my grade school teachers by name and can visualize quite clearly our classrooms, which have also guided me to relationships and past experiences, year by year.

In either approach, once a series of experiences have been explored on paper, the task of deciding what to choose to what about may begin. Usually, through a series of exercises, there is one or more memories that seem to resonate more than others and that begin to take center stage. This may begin the process of narrowing down the theme of the solo show, as in the former student I mentioned.

I have found that writing in an unedited fashion by just getting the stories out can work quite well. Because we all have many personal stories dancing around in our heads, material is rarely an issue. Giving oneself permission to allow the stories is another matter. For different reasons, some stories we want to share with others, and some we choose not to.

I do believe the more free we are in our storytelling, the more engaging and riveting the work can be. In actuality, there are few experiences we have had that have not already been experienced by others. What sets our own particular stories apart are the specifics, but the broad strokes are essentially the same (i.e. a woman’s fight with breast cancer, the dynamics of coming from a dysfunctional family, coming of age, online dating, etc.)

The telling all begins with the desire to create a one person show. With guidance, the rest will unfold. How exhilarating it is to see a one person play develop step by step from thought to page and then from page to stage!

Adilah Barnes is a writer, actor, acting instructor, producer, Internet talk show host and lecturer. She owns and operates The Writers’ Retreat in Sharpsburg, Georgia. You may contact her directly at abarnes@writersretreat.com.

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4.  UPCOMING WORKSHOPS/CLINIC

MAKING A GOOD SCRIPT GREAT A three-day script clinic

Facilitator: Linda Seger, author, and script consultant.

Date:  October 10, 11, 12, 2008

Place: Cascade, Colorado (Pikes Peak Region)

Description: http://www.writersretreat.com/Makingagoodscriptgreat.htm

WRITING IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL

Facilitator: Mary Ann Henry, writer; on-site mentor in Folly Beach, SC

Date:  October 17-19, 2008

Place: Folly Beach, SC

Description: http://www.writersretreat.com/spiritualwriting.htm

POETRY WORKSHOP

Facilitator: Julia Shipley, writer; on-site mentor in Craftsbury, VT

Date:  August 23, 2008

Place: Albany, VT

Register:  http://www.writersretreat.com/workshopformVT.htm

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Until next time… Shape your vision into reality!!!

Micheline Côté, Executive Director

The Writers’ Retreat 

Telephone:  (819) 876-2065

info@writersretreat.com

http://www.writersretreat.com

http://www.writersretreat.com

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IN THIS EDITION

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1.  WALK IN BALANCE—A NEW RESIDENTIAL RETREAT IN GEORGIA

2.  A POTATO, A SKATEBOARD, A RUBBER DUCK:  THE APPEAL OF

     OBJECT POEMS

3.  NEVER GIVE UP

4.  UPCOMING WORKSHOPS

5.  KUDOS

6.  A RETREAT:  A WAY TO CONNECT WITH YOUR VISION!

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1. WALK IN BALANCE—A NEW RESIDENTIAL RETREAT IN GEORGIA

By Adilah Barnes

When I first viewed the Web site of The Writer’s Retreat, I was most struck by the breathtaking, yet diverse beauty of each location. I remember thinking that I wanted to visit every one of them. That thought will remain a goal for me.

I am delighted to now join in the fold of our network with my new retreat in Sharpsburg, Georgia.

I gave thought to why one might want to also come to Sharpsburg. I was led to the obvious. My location offers a woodsy and serene environment where one can create, but less obvious is that the environment feeds the soul. To that end, I have one room that is reserved for those who wish to meditate, practice yoga, enjoy spiritual music, and just allow silence. A vegan myself, a healthy diet is also part of that spiritual feeding. The retreat is a smoke-free environment and a shoeless space as well.

I have found that in order to write, I have to be in a space that allows me the freedom to express. For me, that includes quiet, focus, and a meditative state that invites my inner voice a place to be honored and to be heard. I try to allow at least part of one day a week to experience a “talking fast” so that I may rest my mind and settle inward.

What I offer personally at our Sharpsburg location is my background as an artist. Although I am also an actor, acting teacher, talk show host, and producer, what I bring to the retreat most fittingly is my background as a writing instructor. I primarily work with actor/writers who are interested in getting down on paper personal stories that have been dancing around in their heads. My writer’s workshops at the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival have facilitated writers in reaching down to the core of their being to unveil memories that resonate in both personal and universal truth. I have found sensory exercises that take the writer back to childhood are a fertile source to unlock stories begging to be told.

In Los Angeles, I have taught such workshops as “From Thought to Pen,” “Connecting the Inner Dots.” and “From Page to Stage.” In June of 2008, I will begin teaching solo writing classes at the award-winning Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. I welcome the opportunity to also serve my new bicoastal community as I begin to build relationships within its artistic world.

The progression of unleashing personal stories from the heart to the page, and ultimately on stage, has been an extremely rewarding journey for me. My own solo show, “I Am That I Am: Woman, Black,” is a historical journey through time sharing the lives of seven African American “sheroes” beginning from slavery with Sojourner Truth to present times and concluding with Maya Angelou. My one-woman show has zigzagged across close to forty U.S. states, and has crossed the waters to the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. Though the stories in my one-woman show are not my own, they are personal stories of women I admire and who inspire me.

My first book, On My Own Terms: One Actor’s Journey is slated for release this spring. A cross between a memoir, an acting book, and an inspirational walk, I now look forward to working with writers at our Sharpsburg retreat who are also developing non-fiction narrative works.

I welcome women of all genres of writing to The Writers’ Retreat in Sharpsburg, Georgia. We will together give honor to the literary word and celebrate the creative voice as we also learn from one other.

You may contact me directly at abarnes@writersretreat.com or visit my Web site at www.writersretreat.com/georgia.htm.

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2.  A POTATO, A SKATEBOARD, A RUBBER DUCK:  THE APPEAL OF

     OBJECT POEMS

By Julia Shipley

I used to work at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. Every month fifty artists would arrive by plane, train, and automobile with a suitcase full of ideas, and moments after unpacking, they would begin to paint, sculpt, and write. I envied the painters. On my way to the office, I would see them assembling their easels by the river, brandishing their slender brushes like magic wands. I, on the other hand, went into an austere room with the shade pulled down to write after work. One night, during one of the communal dinners, an artist boasted that he had spent the day painting water lilies on Lake Lamoille. “What did you do?” he queried me. My cheeks flushed. I had revised poems in my dim room. After the meal, I trudged home and flung myself on the couch with a book. I spent the evening reading Robert Bly who wrote, “It’s helpful if you are writing about the pine to go to the pine, or if writing about a tunnel go into the tunnel.” Ever since, I have noticed how difficult it is to write poems sitting at a desk.” 

I realized that night, that I could “paint” my poems from life. I could create my own “plein air” poems. So I began writing by the waterfall and at the basketball game. I held my black pilot pen like a sable brush and swished poems into my notebook. When winter came, I began setting up “still life’s” to examine things at hand: a piece of horn, an umbrella, a head of garlic, my father’s necktie, etc. After writing half a ream of poems about things, I realized I was participating in a well-established genre called the object poem. Rilke wrote some of his most memorable poems about a Greek sculpture, a panther, a vase of roses. He called this type of poem “diggendicht” or “thing poem.” Francis Ponge, a French poet, wrote a book of prose poems called “The Voice of Things.” In this volume, his attention roves from snails and slabs of meat to oysters and doorknobs. Robert Bly defines the object poem as a poem that “playfully describes or praises more or less ordinary things.”

For those new to poetry, or paralyzed by the need to say something new and profound in a poem, the object poem is a potent cure. The only requirement is that the writer observe, discuss, and address the object she has chosen. What a fantastic solution to writer’s block: to begin by describing something small and near, perhaps a potato, a skateboard, or a rubber duck.

Bibliography

Ponge, Francis. The Voice of Things. McGraw Hill: New York, 1972.

Bly, Robert. News of the Universe. Sierra Club Books: San Francisco, 1974.

Bly, Robert. What Have I Ever Lost By Dying? HarperCollins: New York, 1992.

Julia is a poet and writer. She teaches creative and critical writing at Sterling College in Vermont. As a Juried Artist with the Vermont Arts Council, she offers workshops in Vermont’s schools, libraries, and elder-care facilities in Poetry and Creative Nonfiction. 

Winner of the 2006 Ralph Nading Hill Award, her work has appeared in Vermont Life, Vermont’s Local Banquet, Northern Woodlands, Hunger Mountain Magazine, Rivendell Magazine, among others. Julia is currently completing a manuscript of object poems titled, The Family of Things.

She will open her writers’ retreat in Craftsbury, Vermont starting June 1, 2008.

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3.  NEVER GIVE UP

By Mike Hoover

Well, here we are looking at another season at The Writers’ Retreat in Oliver, British Columbia, and it looks like it is going to be a great year. Today I am on my way to Penticton to place some more books at Okanogan Books, the independent bookstore on Main Street. I found since publishing my first novel that my life has taken on a bit of magic. First, when I finally overcame the annoyances of writing, editing, and publishing a book, I found myself in a huge ocean of books and not a clue of what to do.

The first bit of magic was an agent who somehow came across my book and offered me a contract (my first miracle). She submitted my manuscript to many publishers but no takers. “So what the hell,” I thought. “I’ll self publish, at least I’ll have a book and no one can take that away from me.”

Then from way out of my past I get a call to speak at a hockey fundraiser (I didn’t even know that I was a member of the first junior hockey alumni in North America). The main speaker at this fundraiser just happened to be the most famous sports personality in Canada and has his own national television show. And guess what? I will be a guest on his show in a month or so! (Magic or miracle, take your pick.) It will be up to me at that point to sell myself, but this is what I believe writers must do. It is just not enough to sit in front of your computer and bang out a hundred thousand words. With 80,000 rejection slips printed in New York every year, you must give it all you have and NEVER GIVE UP.

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4. UPCOMING WORKSHOPS

MAKING A GOOD SCRIPT GREAT A three-day script clinic in Cascade, Colorado

“The Writers’ Retreat in Cascade, Colorado, is a special experience. You will have your treatment or script analyzed for half a day. I spend about two hours on each project, and then we have input from the other writers in the group who learn through analysis of each other's work. Since we are a small group, we share lunches and dinners together, and one of the dinners is at my home. Some of you may choose to stay an extra day or two to write in the mountains. This is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and a high (in altitude and attitude) creative experience. I look forward to working with you.” Linda Seger

Facilitator:  Linda Seger, author, and script consultant.

Date to be confirmed:  September or October 2008

Place: Cascade, Colorado (Pikes Peak Region)

Description: http://www.writersretreat.com/Makingagoodscriptgreat.htm

Online registration: www.WritersRetreat.com/Workshopform.htm

Questions and registration:  E-mail Linda Seger

WRITING IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL A three-day workshop in Folly Beach

Rarely do writers have the opportunity to slow down and go within to reach a wiser, deeper level. Spend three days on the beautiful Atlantic Ocean and explore your connection to nature and creativity, and the journey of your soul. Through guided imagery and spontaneous writing exercises, you will be revived, renewed and ready to write again.

Facilitator:  Mary Ann Henry, The Writers’ Retreat in Folly Beach, SC

Date: October 17-19, 2008 – for beginning and seasoned writers

Place:  Folly Beach, South Carolina

Description:  www.writersretreat.com/spiritualwriting.htm

Questions and registration:  E-mail Mary Ann Henry

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5. KUDOS

Tricia Callahan, a resident last summer at the Folly Beach retreat, published her first piece in the March issue of Slice magazine. The publication is available in several states (listing on Web site). “Thank you for your retreat program,” says Tricia, “I’m not sure I would have had the confidence to submit otherwise.”

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6. A RETREAT:  A WAY TO CONNECT WITH YOUR VISION

We now offer 10 open-all-year retreats in Canada, United States, Costa Rica and Mexico.

Québec, Canada (Headquarters)

Oliver, British Columbia, Canada

The beautiful San Juan Mountains in Ouray, Colorado

Corralitos near Santa Cruz, California

Folly Beach, South Carolina

Craftsbury, Vermont opening June 1, 2008

Ojochal, Costa Rica

Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific Coast of México

Please visit our Web site at www.WritersRetreat.com and click on one of the locations for more details, or to reserve your private studio.

If you are contemplating a business opportunity in the literary world, contact us today to learn more about starting and operating a Writers’ Retreat in your area.

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Micheline Côté, Executive Director

The Writers’ Retreat 

Telephone:  (819) 876-2065

info@writersretreat.com

http://www.writersretreat.com