Fall workshops begin in October!

Registration open for Fall workshops!
Join us!

Beginning in October, I'm again offering three AWA-method workshops: our Monday night Write Whole group for women survivors of sexual trauma, the Tuesday night erotic workshop (open to all genders!), and our Wednesday morning women's sensuality writing workshop!

Write Whole: Survivors Write
Monday evenings 10/6-12/1.
Gather with other women survivors of sexual trauma to create new art and new beauty out of the difficult and complicated realities of our lives. You'll be encouraged to trust the flow of your own writing, and receive immediate feedback about the power of your words!

Declaring Our Erotic
Tuesday pm, 10/7-12/2.
Get more comfortable exploring and talking about sexual desires, receive strong and focused feedback about your new writing, explore the varied and complex aspects of sexuality and desire, and, of course, try your hand at some explicit erotic writing! In 8 weeks, you'll create an exciting body of fresh and often surprising new writing!

Raw Silk: Women write desire
Wednesday mornings, 10/8-12/3.
Spend your Wednesday mornings wrapping yourself in the language of longing, celebrating the complex textures of sensuality. Each week, we delve into a new thread in the interweaving of our desires: memory, fantasy, experience, relationship with the body, spirituality, and so on. Experience your fully empowered writing voice in this safe, confidential, and fun erotic writing workshop. Explore desire through writing with Raw Silk.

Changing our language can change who we understand ourselves to be.

No previous experience necessary! Pre-registration required. Fee for 8-week AWA workshops is $250. Workshops held our wheelchair accessible downtown SF location, right near BART and multiple MUNI routes!

As always, if you've got any questions, please send them to me at jennifer (at) writingourselveswhole (dot) org. Use the links at the top of this page to learn more info, or visit www.writingourselveswhole.org to register!

This Wed is the Erotic Reading Circle!

Voted Best of the Bay 2007 by SF Bay Guardian! --
"Best Erotic Resurrection"

EROTIC READING CIRCLE
with Carol Queen and Jen Cross
Every fourth Wednesday of the month

August circle: 8/27/08, 7:30-9:30pm
At the Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission @ 11th, San Francisco

Thanks to all of you who came out to the ERC Anniversary party earlier this month! The amazing readers showcased are representative of the breadth of erotic work shared every month at our Reading Circle! If you come to the CSC on the fourth Wed of the month, you can hobnob with this greatness... and share your own!

Come join readers this coming Wednesday and share your erotic writing & art! Bring something to read or just be part of the appreciative circle of listeners. This is a great place to try out new work (ask for comments if you like), or get more comfortable reading for other people. Longtime writers will bring their latest... newly inspired writers, bring that vignette you scrawled on BART while daydreaming on your way to work! Non-judgmental listening guaranteed, all orientations welcome. Carol Queen and Jen Cross host/facilitate this space dedicated to erotic writers and readers!

Sugg. donation: $5-up sliding scale, but no one turned away for lack of funds.
At The Center for Sex and Culture, 1519 Mission St, between 11th & So. Van Ness

Write to jennifer@writingourselveswhole.org or visit www.centerforsexandculture.org for more information!

"Shedding the Skin of Shame, Bearing Our Bodies' Truths"

Call for Artists -- Please Forward Widely!

ARTISTS AGAINST RAPE:
"Shedding the Skin of Shame, Bearing Our Bodies' Truths"
October 18th, 2008
This dynamic event features local poets, artists and activists, speaking out against sexual assault and offers a unique supportive space for expression and community building. We are seeking volunteers help to make this event happen. If you are interested in volunteering for the event, our first meeting will be in July 2008. Check website for updates on meeting times.

SUMBISSIONS:
* To submit poetry, prose, flows, songs, and music, artists must send in a cassette or CD of their piece, along with a written copy of all words/lyrics. If work is received in written format only, the piece may not be considered for inclusion.
* Visual artists may submit work in the form of high-resolution (300dpi) digital images in the following formats: TIFF, JPEG, JPG.
* To submit dance pieces, please send a VHS, DVD or weblink of the entire piece.
* All performance pieces (i.e. poetry, dance, music/songs, dramatic sketches, etc.) must have a total running time of 5 minutes or less. The suggested length for performance pieces is 3-5 minutes.

Please include a short biography (300 words or less) and contact information with your submission. Pieces must be related to healing from and/or speaking out against violence, sexual violence and gender and/or sexual oppression. Due to space limitations, not all submissions may be accepted, and selection is at the discretion of the artistic committee. Performers will receive a modest stipend. All SUBMISSIONS due no later than AUGUST 15th. No exceptions!

For more information or questions, please email janetuphadye@sfwar.org or visit the SFWAR website at www.sfwar.org!

Metaphysical Fitness -- Classes start soon!

Jen's Note: Sista Nau*T is my dear friend and compatriot in the work of transformation & healing -- she's deeply invested in the work of helping us remember the importance of our bodies and connect back into these selves we sometimes forget to take such good care of:

---

Doshe Healing Arts in collaboration with Bushmama Productions present:
Metaphysical Fitness Training

Come explore practical solutions for common obstacles to health and wellness.
Learn to work out anytime, anywhere engaging in small daily activities that have profound life long impacts.

Classes begin Aug. 2, 2008 at 10a
We offer the class at a sliding scale $10-$25 suggested donations NTAFLOF
Register now, space is limited.

For more information please visit our website
http://web.mac.com/sisnaut/iWeb/Doshe%20Healing%20Arts/Contact%20Us.html


Peace, Love, Guidance, Protection and Prosperity in Abundance,
Sis. Nau~T
Doshe Healing Arts
Founder and Executive Director

Sexuality writing retreat in the Upper Midwest, July 25-27!

Once more with feeling - Sexuality writing reatreat in the Upper Midwest, July 25-27!

I get to go back to the Upper Midwest at the end of this month, and write with some of the fantastic folks I met when I was out in Minn. for the Body Heat tour -- please join us if you can, and spread the word!
-----
Sexuality and Writing Workshop
For Self-identified Women and Trans People
Facilitated by Jen Cross and Susan Miranda

Friday, July 25 –Sunday, July 27, 2008
Cost: 275.00
To register or with questions: write miranda_susan(at)yahoo.com!

This workshop will be a first time ever combining of the work of Jen Cross and Susan Miranda. Jen will facilitate the writing portions of the workshop. Susan will facilitate the conversations on the topics of intimacy, body, touch, sexuality, love and relationships.

Why a sexuality/writing retreat?
Transform your relationship with your sexuality, with your writing—and with yourself!

- You may be a writer who feels timid about describing sex and sexuality in your work, and want a place to explore sexual expression.
- Maybe you have particular erotic desires that you'd like to play out on the page before playing them out in person.
- You may simply enjoy writing about sex and desire!

We believe that much of our sexuality and erotics are manifested through our language. In this AWA-method sexuality/writing writing retreat, join with other writers as we wrap ourselves in the language of longing, celebrating the complex textures of sensuality.

Spend the weekend delving into the interweaving of desire: memory, fantasy, relationship with the body, spirituality, and so on. The exercises are playful, thought-provoking, and inspiring, designed to leave you more confident with sexual language, erotic expression, and your own writing practice.

The goal of the conversations about sexuality, touch, intimacy, love and relationships is to honor the entire body and our whole selves. Through these conversations, the workshop experience and cabin setting, our hope is to facilitate understanding of our connection with self, the body and with other individuals.

You'll end the weekend with:
- a rich body of new creative writing;
- feedback from your peers about what's already strong in your new writing;
- and engaged connection with a new community!

Setting for this workshop: This workshop will be held in a small cabin in a wooded area near a river in Wisconsin 80 miles northeast of Minneapolis. We'll provide meals and snacks Friday evening, throughout Saturday and on Sunday morning. A sauna will be available to the group the entire weekend and will be optional. The workshop will start 7 p.m. Friday and go until 2 p.m. on Sunday.

Sliding scale may be available; Spaces are limited and beginning to fill! Please contact us with any questions or to register: miranda_susan(at)yahoo.com

About the facilitators:
Jen is an extensively-anthologized writer, whose work appears in more than 20 anthologies and webzines (some as Jen Collins), including Best Sex Writing 2008, Best Women's Erotica 2007, Best Fetish Erotica, Best Bisexual Women's Erotica, Nobody Passes, and many more. Jen received her MA in Transformative Language Arts from Goddard College (where she studied the healing uses of erotic writing), has led erotic writing workshops since 2002, and is a firm believer in the transformative power of smut. To learn more, visit www.writingourselveswhole.org.

Susan has an M.A. in Human Development with an emphasis in women's sexuality. She has studied experiential forms of body and sexuality education including Body-Mind Centering™, and Ancient Hawaiian Bodywork or Lomi Lomi massage. Since 1989, Susan has taught seminars such as "Unlearning Homophobia, Biphobia and Sexphobia" and on various sexual healing and sacred touch topics. In the past, she has worked as a pelvic model/patient instructor for the medical community and a reproductive health counselor at a women's health clinic. Currently, she works as a caregiver for people with AIDS. www.susanmirandablog.blogspot.com

Reminder: Summer writing workshops begin next week!

Eight-week writing workshops
With Writing Ourselves Whole!

Summer workshops begin July 14 and 15
www.writingourselveswhole.org


**Write Whole-Survivors Write**
meets Monday evenings, beginning July 14.
Open to women survivors of sexual trauma.
Gather with other survivors to create new art and new beauty out of your experiences, and deepen your sense of wholeness. (note: both "woman" and "survivor" are intended to be self-defined.)


**Declaring Our Erotic**
meets Tuesday evenings, beginning July 15.
Open to folks of all sexualities and all genders!
DOE workshops provide a space to get more comfortable exploring and talking about sexuality and desire, and to become less inhibited in your own writing. Share your manuscripts with peer writers for well-rounded response to your erotic work, and create an exciting body of fresh and (often) surprising new writing in 8 weeks!

No previous writing experience necessary -- Open to folks of
all writing abilities!

Workshops held in San Francisco in an accessible space, a half-block from BART and on many MUNI lines. Spaces are limited and pre-registration is required! Cost for 8 weeks is $250. To register, visit www.writingourselveswhole.org!

About your facilitator: Jen Cross is a freelance writer
whose work has been published in numerous anthologies, and
is fresh off the very successful Body Heat tour with
kathleen delaney and Vixen Noir/Veronica Combs! She's a
queer incest survivor, and has facilitated writing workshops
for the past 5 years. She received her MA in Transformative
Language Arts from Goddard College, and is a certified
facilitator of the Amherst Writers & Artists method
(http://www.amherstwriters.com/).

A facilitator's gratitude

This week is the last meeting of this Spring's Write Whole (survivors) and Declaring Our Erotic workshops -- and this is the second write I did last night with my DOE writers, how grateful I am to get to do this work:

Write #2, 6/24/08:

All I can think of is the time we first gathered around this fire and
snuck our way through the worry and possibility into new words
and voices, when we strung ourselves out onto tightropes of fear and
 walked straight into an empty rent-by-the-hour room in the new gay
center downtown and we sat our chairs in a circle and hadn’t yet spilled
 our lust all over and down the fronts of our shirts for everyone else to see.
 We were risking more than we were aware of in that moment, when we
pulled a pen out of our back pockets or dug one out of our bags or snuck
one off the table and we set it to the blank page and we said, “This is
what I think erotic writing can do.”  All I can think of is the time I first
sat in the circle of erotic word makers and then we lifted our pens up
off the page after 7 minutes of scratching and scrawling, just 7 minutes
and the whole world was changed because these folks and hope enough
to write an answer down and then joy and brazen careening flying-fuck
kind of optimism enough to open their mouths and let those same scrawled
words come pushing up through ht heart and lungs, formed by lips and teeth,
into our right now hearing.  And in the aftermath, I said “What stayed?” and
then and ten and then – people risked answering – cause the saying what stays,
 what you remember, is a risk, too, and the shared gifts in that room were
tangible and effervescent, innumerable and yet I tried to write them all
down and there’s nothing hot about this writing / not really / except I still
get caught in that joy     the way that we honor one another’s craftsmanship and
 craftwomanselves, one another’s optimism and grief, one another’s hotness
and brilliance and yes we are forever these writers right now and in the
process of exactly this writing we change and it’s exactly that inoculation
against stagnation that brings me back here    how it’s always already new
 and surprising         how it seems like I know what’s going to
happen but really I just have a vague sense of a potential starting point
and some grapes and crackers to snack on and then we fly and we fly
into the words, we jump and groan into the flames, we lift our hands
back up, sticky and sweaty, and we get to show of        yes       
what magic we’ve done.

thanks, y'all. thanks for reading, and thanks for writing!