LOCAL>> Writing for Health and Healing Online Retreat

Please join us for a free virtual writing retreat to restore your energy and well-being. The focus of the retreat is to explore the ways that writing can help us face today’s challenges and rejuvenate the spirit.

Our February retreat will focus on transformative learning experiences with writing workshops and a craft talk.

We extend a special welcome to healthcare providers and teachers. Registered nurses can apply to earn 5 continuing education units (CEUs) for attending the retreat. Teachers can apply to earn 0.5 CEUs.

Register here

Saturday, February 20:

12:00 – 12:45 pm PST: Welcome Session
Welcome to the WHH retreat. Meet faculty and other retreat participants.

1:00 – 3:00 pm PST: Writing Workshops
You will have the option of requesting a workshop preference in the registration process.

Workshop 1: To and From: Narrative Writing about Place with Thomas Burke, MFA faculty
Workshop 2: Expressive Writing with Joan Baranow, MFA faculty
Workshop 3: The Magic of Everyday Moments with Kim Culbertson, visiting MFA faculty and MFA student Allison Baldwin
Workshop 4: Writing Poems with Indigo Moor, visiting MFA faculty
Workshop 5: You are an Expert in You: Writing to Heal & Improve Your Experience as a Patient with Beth Toner, registered nurse and MFA student
Workshop 6: Dear Cancer: Palliative Letter-Writing with Sonya Evans, English teacher and MFA student

4:00 – 6:00 pm PST: Keynote
“Who Your People Be”: Towards a Groundedness in the Freedom of Lineage

Raina J. León, visiting MFA faculty

One of the most psychological and ideological destructions that can be perpetrated is in the destruction of the spiritual repositories: temples, gravesites, archives, and other sacred sites. In the dust of the past, we grow, but in salted earth, there is barrenness. In this session, we explore lineage (chosen, community claiming, and blood lines) as a pathway to individual and communal healing. The talk will include poems centered in BIPOC voices and ways of knowing, oracle practices, and writing prompts.

Sunday, February 21:

3:00 – 3:30 pm PST: Info Session: Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing at Dominican CA (optional)
Learn more about the low residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Dominican University of CA.

4:00 – 6:00 pm PST: Panel Discussion
Shakespeare in Prison

Perry Guevara, Dominican Faculty, Lesley Currier, Marin Shakespeare Company Director, Returned Citizen (TBA)