Tag Archives: manuscript workshop

If you resolved to write, join us in 2015!

Did you make some writing-related resolutions for your creative self in 2015? Come and join us at one of our many writing groups and workshops, and bring those intentions into reality. Here’s what’s the winter schedule looks like at Writing Ourselves Whole!

Declaring Our Erotic: Open to all women survivors of sexual trauma
8 Tuesdays, beginning January 12, 2015.
Fee: $375 (scholarship/payment plan available)
Meets in private workshop space in Oakland, near Lake Merritt
Find community around the complexity of desire, and transform your relationship with your creative self through explicit erotic writing.

Meridian Writers: Daytime, general topic writing workshop open to all!
9 Wednesday mornings beginning January 14, 2015.
Fee: $425 (Fees from this workshop help support Writing Ourselves Whole’s workshops for trauma survivors.)
Meets in private workshop space in Oakland, near Lake Merritt
Find your center and write your story with a other writers who are connecting more deeply with their writing practice. At the end of our nine weeks together, you will have a new creative community, and a strong body of original writing.

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Fall workshop schedule at Writing Ourselves Whole

graffiti of a butterfly hovering a branch that contains two nests of heartsFall is upon us, and many folks are in the back-to-school mode. Maybe you’re ready to pull out those composition books and let your words flow. Maybe you’re finished with summer’s travels and are ready to settle back into a relationship with your words. Maybe you’re ready to find community support for your stories. Whatever your reasons, join us in a group or workshop this fall, and write yourself whole:

Write Whole-Survivors Write. Open to all survivors of trauma
8 Monday evenings beginning October 14, 2013.
Fee: $350
Meets in private workshop space in Oakland, near Lake Merritt.
Gather with other trauma survivors and write in response to exercises chosen to elicit deep-heart writing around such subjects as body image, family/community, sexuality, dreams, love, faith, and more.

Reclaiming Our Erotic Story: Open to all women
8 Tuesday evenings beginning October 15, 2013.
Fee: $350
Meets in private workshop space in Oakland, near Lake Merritt.
Safe space in which to explore our gorgeously complicated erotic selves! Find community around the complexity of desire — and transform your relationship with your creativity and your sexuality! — as you try your hand at explicit erotic writing.

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in the slog

white graffiti on red brick -- the image is an outline of a headscarfGood morning — it’s April first! What foolishness are you getting into today? Outside my window the rain is making me believe I’m back in the East, like there’s some real spring happening, what with everything in flower and the tender transplanted roots of vegetables in the garden drinking up what the sky is offering. How about that for the first day of National Poetry Month — April’s the month to celebrate the necessary power of poetry, and/or to write your own.

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Today I woke up and spent some time with morning pages, then worked on my novel for about an hour. I’ve hit page 600 in the book. 600. Six-hundred pages of what now? Of backstory and morning writes and snippets generated during workshops and character development and rambling and the slow build toward plot discovery and story. The book isn’t done. It’s not quite near done. It’s certainly through the halfway marker, and we might have crossed the three-quarter point, but there’s still a lot of writing to go.

And this is just the first draft. Continue reading

diving deep (and working)

Good morning good morning – it’s rainy here in Oakland, looks like real spring out there. The puppy is watching her corner of the world, her head propped up on the couch arm, and I’ve got tea and just-baked banana cornbread.

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Spring workshops begin in April; you can join us in person or online!

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The first quarter of Dive Deep closes tonight — we’ll have a potluck, talk about the successes and struggles of the last quarter. It’s been a hard three months for many of the writers I’ve been working with: real life has been getting in the way of the creative work we want to bring into the world. And yet folks are still doing the work.

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Winter 2012 Workshops — Here’s what’s coming up!

The new year is the time for a new dedication to your writing practice — and we’ve got a whole host of offerings, beginning in January and February, one of which might be just right for you or someone you love!

Please pass the word, and let me know if you’d like to join us! I’m looking forward to writing with you —

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