Tag Archives: writing workshops

New offering for 2019: Fierce Hunger – Monthly survivors writing circles!

graffiti of a multicolored hummingbird, found on a mailbox in Oakland
Fierce Hunger: Survivors writing
at the intersection of trauma and desire
Themed writing sessions every first Saturday of the month, 12-5pm
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Register for Odyssey; Join a group to heal, or to develop your intuition or spiritual practice!

Here are a few announcements that have arrived in my inbox recently, and I wanted to make sure to pass them on to you! The first, Odyssey, is a writing workshop open to writers from all over the world; the other three are Bay-Area-local offerings…

1) Apply for Odyssey: For writers of fantasy, SF, and horror

Now in its 24thyear, the Odyssey Writing Workshop is widely considered one of the top programs in the world for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Acclaimed authors, editors and agents serve as guest lecturers, and 59% of graduates have gone on to be professionally published.  

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2015 Festival of Writing on July 11!

psrAWA West presents
our second annual
Festival of Writing!

Saturday, July 11
9:30am – 6:00pm
Pacific School of Religion
1798 Scenic Avenue, Berkeley
$65 for PSR/GTU students and $90 for the general public. (A limited number of seats are available at a discounted rate for low income writers. If you would like to request a discount, contact summer@psr.edu.)

Join us for the second annual Festival of Writing, hosted by Pacific School of Religion and AWA West! Don’t miss this day of powerful writing and supportive, kind community in an absolutely beautiful setting. There’s no better way to celebrate both your writing and the gifts of the Amherst Writers & Artists workshop method. Register now!

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necessary medicine

Good morning! After 7am and the birds are just now waking up in the live oak tree behind the apartment — I guess the rain kept them inside, too. The puppy’s not up yet, either. I think she knows what we’re gonna find when we head out into the city. Today, I’m grateful for the thick grey wet out there. Been up and working since 4:30. It’s almost time for a breakfast break.

Yesterday I had my third workshop in four days; it was a full stretch, starting on Thursday afternoon, and today I’m in a re-centering mode. How do you find your balance?  Continue reading

it adds up

graffiti -- mosaic sunflowerBack to the regular schedule today — good morning out there!

Today the clouds are bulbous and full of pink. What’s the sky like outside your window?

The forecast is for 56 degrees in San Francisco today. I talk to Kathleen in Atlanta, where it’s been in the 90s with tremendous humidity. What can we say about summer except hello?

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a relationship with home again


Yesterday we hiked up a mountain — a small mountain, Tiburon mountain, sure, but when we came to the top, we could see the full body of that orange Golden Gate Bridge, hugged thick by fog, nearly weighted down. We could see the whole fog-heavy morning laid out in front of us.

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This week, the workshops begin again — tonight I’ll be meeting with a full Write Whole workshop, and throughout the day, I’ll be communicating with folks who’ve signed up for the online Reclaiming Our Erotic Story class. I’m making my first videos ever for the online workshop — I feel like we get closer to the ‘in person’ experience if folks can hear the prompt, rather than read it. We’ll see how that goes.

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the right time

graffiti of a flower, a bee hovering over, maybe a microphone in the background?Good morning! The birds are quiet today — maybe this blue-grey wakening day is subduing them.

What do things look like outside your window? (That’s a great place to begin writing, btw — if you’re just opening the notebook and wondering what to say. Start anywhere — say anything. All the starts are just opened doors that you can walk through, that your writing can walk you through, to get you where it wants you to go. So take that square of windowpane: what’s on the other side? What exactly do you see, or don’t you see? The descriptions will pull you in to the writing, the process, the flow. Let yourself get pulled, notice what associations, what words or phrases or characters start to bubble up, and let those down onto the page next, then follow them.)

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finding a place

graffiti of a phonograph and drops of something (music? rain?) coming out of the amplification part

(this image has nothing to do with today's post, but I really like it, so here you go)

This morning the birds are trilling like mad, and I thought I heard a hawk calling from over the Preserve behind the house. The tea (nettle-dandelion-mint morning wake up tea) is warm in my hands, and my insides feel warm like fear is taking a dive to the edges and something good and possible is filling up the places that it’s fled.

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Writing the Flood on May 21! A monthly writing workshop open to all

Writing the Flood
Open the gates and let your writing voice flow

Third Saturday of every month!
Our next workshop meets May 21, 1-4:30pm
Come write with us!
Follow up with that resolution to return to your words! Writing The Flood is a writing group for anyone looking to prime the writing pump: using the Amherst Writers and Artists method, we will write together in response to exercises designed to get those pens moving, and get onto the page the stories, poems, essays, images and voices that have been stuck inside for too long. This is a time to work on a larger project, get started on new work, play on the page, or write yourself through a block and back into your writing voice.

Unless otherwise noted, this workshop meets on the third Saturday of the month. $50 (sliding scale available). Spaces limited to 12 writers.

No previous writing experience necessary! Workshops held in Berkeley or San Francisco in an accessible space, close to BART and MUNI lines. Pre-registration is required — please write to the address above with questions or to register.

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5/28 in Sacto: Reclaiming our Erotic Story!

We had so much fun at this workshop back in January, we’re doing it again! Contact John Crandall (info at the end of the post) to register or for more info! -xox, Jen

Reclaiming our Erotic Story:

the Liberatory Potential of  Writing Desire

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