Our Writing From Your Life Retreat offers professional and personal insights into memoir, monologue & poetry and exceptional enrichment of your creative life. Experience the gifts of guild community in our regional event in Metro-west Boston!
REGISTER!
Our Three Outstanding Guild Workshop Leaders
Susan Tiberghien – Finding Meaning in Your Life Story
Judy Adourian – The Autobiographical Monologue
Kelly DuMar – Writing Truth & Beauty – Finding Poetry in Your Photos
Schedule for the Day
9:00 - 9:45 am Arrival & registration - a warm welcome with bagels, coffee and juice
9:45 - 10:00 am Introductions & Opening Remarks by host Kelly DuMar
10:00 - 11:45 am Susan Tiberghien, Writing Memoir - Finding Meaning in Your Life Story
11:45 - 1:15 pm Catered Lunch & Book Fair – network with other writers and purchase books written by current IWWG members in attendance
1:15 - 3:00 pm Judy Adourian, Writing Autobiographical Monologues
3:15 - 5:00 pm Kelly DuMar, Writing Truth & Beauty – Finding Poetry in Your Personal Photos
5:00 - 5:15 pm Wrap-Up & Goodbyes
Workshop Descriptions & Instructor Bios
Writing Memoir – Finding Meaning in Your Life Story (Susan Tiberghien)
Memoir is a window into your life. You choose a life experience, shape it into story, and try to make meaning out of it. In this workshop we will first look at what windows we wish to open. Then at how to shape what we see into compelling narrative. We will write a short piece of memoir, in which ultimately we hope to uncover meaning. In so doing, we will respond to today’s urgent call to bear witness through our words.
Susan Tiberghien, an American writer living in Geneva, Switzerland, has published three memoirs Looking for Gold, Circling to the Center, Footsteps-A European Album, and the highly appreciated writing book, One Year to a Writing Life, plus two new titles published in 2015: Side by Side: Writing Your Love Story and Footsteps: In Love with a Frenchman. She teaches at C.G. Jung Centers, at the International Women’s Writing Guild, and at writers’ centers and conferences in the States and in Europe where she directs the Geneva Writers’ Group, an association of over 230 English-language writers. www.susantiberghien.com
Writing Autobiographical Monologues (Judy Adourian)
Did you know that you write autobiographical monologues every day? Whether it’s a story you tell at a dinner party, the confession you share with a friend, or the thoughts that run through your mind in middle of the night, you’re writing monologues. And those monologues are the most fruitful seeds a writer of any genre can plant. Let me guide you through the process of cultivating your thoughts and stories into words on a page so they can bloom.
Judy Adourian is the owner of Writeyes, a teaching, critiquing & support network that offers correspondence courses, critiques, and workshops in genres of playwriting, personal essay, & short story. She assists her clients in every step of the writing process from inspiration to completed manuscript to marketing/production. Judy has been published in six editions of the Cup of Comfort series, The Ultimate Mom, and Grab Your Tiger anthologies. In 2009 Judy received a grant for “Teaching as a Spiritual Practice,” a Unitarian Universalist religious exploration curriculum. Judy’s writing how-to articles were featured regularly online at Inkwell Newswatch and in NEWN magazine, for which she was the Executive Editor. Judy served for over a decade as the R.I. Regional Rep for IWWG & she can be reached through her website at http://www.Writeyes.com
Writing Truth & Beauty – Finding Poetry in Your Photos (Kelly DuMar)
The photos we save & the photos we take show what we care about and hope to preserve, what moves and mystifies us, the people, places and experiences that bring meaning into our lives. In this workshop, we’ll write poetically from personal photos that arrest our attention and unpack why they do. Writing poetry from photos allows us to express the truth of what we feel - and know - and haven’t said, as we capture the beauty and deeper meaning of an image in words. We’ll shape images into poems that reveal our personalities, identity, relationships & creativity. Please bring photos to work from!
Kelly DuMar is a playwright & poet who facilitates creative writing workshops for writers across the US. Her poems are published in many literary magazines, and her award-winning poetry chapbook, “All These Cures,” was published by Lit House Press in 2014. A past president of Playwrights’ Platform, Boston, Kelly has been involved in facilitating new play development for many years. Her award winning plays have been produced around the US and Canada, and are published by dramatic publishers. She founded and produces the Our Voices Festival of Women Playwrights at Wellesley College, now in its 10th year, and she moderates, Let’s Talk TLA, a bi-monthly teleconference and poetry open mic for members of the Transformative Language Arts Association. Kelly serves on the Board of IWWG. Visit her website at http://www.kellydumar.com
