2003 Retreat

First Retreat for Committed Women Writers

A Brief Account of A Room of Her Own Foundation’s First Annual Retreat

Based on the Words of Women Who Were There
Ghost Ranch, New Mexico
August 11 — 17, 2003

The AROHO retreat at Ghost Ranch gathered nearly fifty women writers from nineteen states for an intense week of writing, discussion, and mutual support. Seventeen of us had received scholarships of various sorts from AROHO to make our participation possible.

Each day we retreatants met in small groups of six to hone skills and share insights. Each group was led by an outstanding, accomplished writer—Kim Addonizio, Rebecca Brown, Breena Clarke, Anne Finger, Ellen McLaughlin, and Gail McMeekin—and discussed topics from poetic imagery to overcoming creative obstacles to developing characters to using Virginia Woolf’’s writing to inform their own. Visiting writer Denise Chávez and the 2002 AROHO Gift of Freedom Finalists, Jennifer Tseng, Kitsey Canaan, Rebecca Carroll, Camille Dungy, and Deborah Lubar also led morning classes and participated in the keynote discsussion.

In the early afternoons and evenings we gathered as a large community to read from the work of each writer present and to listen to that work with attention and care. We withdrew, pen and pad or laptop and extension cord in hand, to various corners of the Ranch to continue our work. We shared meals and discussed authors and poets, listened to presentations on publication and promotion, and, encouraged by Darlene, we prepared concrete plans to help us bring creative projects to fruitful completion. And we still found time and energy to hike the Ranch’’s magnificent mesas, watch meteors fall, and visit the haunts of Georgia O’’Keeffe, creating new friends and a viable community of women writers along the way.

For more details about workshops and classes, and to read faculty bios, continue below.

Main Workshop Groups

Kim Addonizio
POETRY: IMAGERY AND EXPERIENCE

Ideally, a poem doesn't simply describe an experience, but becomes an experience for the reader. One way this happens is through imagery's appeal to the reader at the level of sensual, bodily experience. Our focus will be on reading and writing poems rich in physical detail, with an eye to both keen observation of the external world and exploration of the images we carry within us.

There will be a combination of reading published work, in-class writing and a chance to critique some work by participants. This workshop should enhance your appreciation of an important craft element, and guide you towards more powerful poems of your own. Please bring the following to the workshop: The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, authored by myself and Dorianne Laux; and several photographs that are important to you from various stages of your life, including at least one family photo (past or present) and a childhood photo of yourself.

Rebecca Brown
THE WORK OF THE ARTIST: WOMEN'S WORK WITH VIRGINIA WOOLF.

In this workshop we will write creative texts of our own (fiction, poetry or memoir) generated by our discussion of Virginia Woolf's images of creative women. We will look primarily at To The Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own. We will look at the characters of Mrs. Ramsay, the matriarch, and Lily Brisco, the painter, in To The Lighthouse to see what Woolf may be suggesting about art and domesticity and the historic position of women as writers in A Room of One's Own. We will use what we learn about Woolf and her work to inspire our own personal, fanciful, grave and goofy words.
Participants in this workshop should read To The Lighthouse and A Room Of One's Own before coming to the retreat and bring copies of these books to the retreat. Participants in this workshop should also bring at least one photograph each of 1) herself at sometime in her twenties, 2) her mother, and 3) someone she was in love with or dated or whatevered in her youth (whenever that was...)

Breena Clarke
POTS, PANS, BOWLS AND BUCKETS: Engaging items of material culture as an aid in developing the identity of fictional characters.

This is a workshop for writers working on character-driven fiction who would like to explore a dynamic way of imagining characters. I am a suggestible, excitable and easily stimulated writer, and use a dynamic method of observing and handling tools and ephemera as a technique for achieving a fuller understanding of the people upon whom I base my fiction. I focus my interest on work tools because my characters are most often not members of the elite class. And since I place women in the foreground of my fiction, I am most interested in the very broad category of objects considered household work tools. I routinely ask about objects and collect the vernacular expressions and odd names associated with them. Answers I collect to questions about how people interact with objects help me build a complete and specific picture of my character. If she's going to tote a bucket, I need to know how heavy and how wide it is to know if she is well able to heft it or struggles under the weight or will scrape her hand on it.

The "Pots" workshop will discuss museum collections and their real value for this methodology, but more importantly will actually handle and discuss objects for what they "say" about humans. Examples of the dynamic tools used by women that the workshop will look at and handle are: flat irons, cake mixers, hair products, sanitary napkins, cooking utensils, brooms, keys, suitcases, clothing, dolls, needlework crafts and tools, memorial objects, grave markers, bibles and the full range of pots, pans, bowls and buckets. Our workshop will also read unfamiliar photographs and construct fiction. We'll build character-driven work from what we see, from what we don't see and from what we imagine.

Workshop participants should bring an object that is descriptive of, made by or used by a woman. The object must be portable and not fragile. Participants should also bring a portrait style photograph of an unknown individual or scene. Common sense and practicality be your guide, but leave the gate open for passion.

Anne Finger
I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP: WRITING CREATIVE NON-FICTION

We will begin this workshop with an exploration of the territory carved out by the genre that has come to be called "creative non-fiction," exploring its differences from journalism and fiction and (briefly) thinking about its history and development.

In-class writing exercises- dealing with memory, sensory detail, and structure-will be used to both generate new material and to hone and develop work-in-progress. Each participant will also submit up to forty pages of a work-in-progress to be critiqued by the group as a whole. Please think carefully about the piece you bring for a critique: ideally, it will be writing that does not feel finished to you-rather, it should be work that you feel would benefit from other perspectives. Feedback will be given in an honest and supportive manner, both by the group and by the instructor in individual sessions.

Participants needing disability accommodations in order to fully participate in the class should contact the instructor as soon as possible.

Ellen McLaughlin
HEARING THE CHARACTER VOICE
"...it is as easy as lying." Hamlet

Playwrights, more than writers in any other medium, need to have an ear for the idiosyncrasies of speech and a fluency in writing credible and compelling dialogue. This workshop will concentrate on attuning writers to the essential structural aspect of the medium-the character voice. Students will be led through a series of writing exercises intended to help them engage with the medium by addressing their literary intentions using only the spare but eloquent means of speech. Students will be encouraged toward that state playwrights most aspire to-the moment when the character, rather than the playwright, begins to speak.

Sessions will entail writing and reading the participants' work primarily but I will be bringing in examples of playwriting ranging from Chekhov to Tennessee Williams and Tony Kushner.

No preliminary reading or purchase of books is necessary. Nor is any prior involvement with the medium.

Gail McMeekin
OVERCOMING CREATIVE OBSTACLES

Your creativity-your capacity to innovate-has the potential to give you an edge in living a fulfilling life. The creative process flourishes with commitment, positive choices, fear management, and a rendezvous with your spiritual self. Too often, as women, we succumb to silence, self-doubt, distraction, fear, or the needs of others, and our creative work stalls or stays unexpressed In this interactive, supportive workshop, you will have a chance to identify and develop strategies and an action plan to resolve your personal creative obstacles. Using written exercises, visualization, journaling, creative rituals, and peer coaching, you will learn to master your personal saboteurs (both internal and external) to inspiration and completion. We will work intensively with the following success strategies:

• Leveraging your Personal Creative Style
• Using Passion to Squelch Fear and Take Risks
• Mastering the Art of Self-Focus
• Negotiating Protection/Support for Your Creative Life
• Managing Self-Talk, Time, and Old Ghosts
• Transcending Rejection and Roadblocks

You will leave this workshop with more self-awareness of your creative strengths and challenges, increased self-confidence, and a step-by-step action plan to facilitate your creative journey and productivity.

Please bring a symbol of what creativity means to you and a creative writing work in progress to our first session. Hand-outs and a reading list will be provided at the workshop and there will be homework in-between sessions.

Other Activities

Keynote Panel, on Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own
Presenters: Kim Addonizio, Rebecca Brown, Rebecca Carroll, Kitsey Canaan

Hour-Long Classes

Denise Chávez: "Telling Family Stories"
Breena Clarke: "Who's Afraid of Aunt Jemima?"
Camille Dungy: "Poetry as Witness"
Anne Finger: "To Tell the Truth: A One-Hour Workshop in Creative Nonfiction"
Mary Johnson: "Imagery for the Imageless: Writing about the Self-Transcendent"
Deborah Lubar: "Writing and Healing: Seeking the Sanity that Grows Like Small Purple Flowers through the Thick Stone Walls of Our Time"
Ellen McLaughlin: "Equal Truths: Memory and Fiction"
Gail McMeekin: "Positive Choices for the Creative Life"
Jennifer Tseng: "Found in Translation: What Poets Can Learn from Poetry in Translation"