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Writing Workshops
Stuck in a creative funk? Tired of writing alone in your room? Explore opportunities to meet other amazing writers and experience the power of the written word.
Choose from the following workshops: Writers’ Nest, a single-session Zoom workshop focused on building community, jumpstarting creativity, and fostering empathy; Chapter One Workshop, a warm and welcoming 4-week virtual workshop for female writers at all levels; and/or The Female Experience Weekend, an in-person retreat for anyone who wants to celebrate writing and community (and eat delicious food).
Writers’ Nest
Are you a writer who is alone all the time and craves community? Do you have a job where you wish you could be more creative? Are you blocked and want to jumpstart your creative engine? Do you cherish writing and want to celebrate the craft?
On two Sundays and two Wednesdays a month at 5pm PST/8pm EST, 6 women and I gather in a Zoom room. I email each woman a poem or quotation, she reads and responds to it in twenty minutes, then returns to the room to share her words.
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Like all good hosts, Jennifer sets a great table, feeding the writers with provocative, delicious poems and encouraging everyone not only to write and share from wherever they are on their paths, but to be active in giving feedback. I've loved what I've written with her and also truly loved the community. The supplied poems and writing of the other participants uncannily match what I need to read/hear. It's been a creative joy—not only a moment of salvation during COVID quarantine, but a living proof of the healing power of community.
— Denise
RETURNING FALL 2026
Chapter One Workshop
Open to all women, writers or not, at any level, to experience the nourishing power of putting pen to page. You will learn how writing, in any form, can provide a refuge and an anchor in your life. You will feel how empowering it is to gather in an intimate setting with other women and share stories. As Clarissa Pinkola Estés says, “I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories… water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.”
What to Expect
Fear not. Our focus IS NOT crafting perfect sentences or creating spellbinding paragraphs. Some of your workshop-mates may be sharing their writing for the first time, or they may be returning to the page after a long break. I ask that you allow yourself to create what Anne Lamott calls “shitty first drafts.”
And I ask that you be okay sharing these shitty first drafts.
We are often paralyzed with fear imagining others reading what we consider imperfect. But I think imperfect is good. Imperfect means you are trying. YOU ARE TRYING. You are not doing the dishes or watching TV or taking a nap. I believe if we let ourselves be imperfect we allow ourselves to be more vulnerable in our work which makes better work. Plus, perfection is boring.
Something else to know: I will ask at the beginning of the workshop that you do not share your job in your introduction. This eliminates prejudgments and facilitates a non-competitive environment. I will also ask that you do not discuss with others what happened in the workshop. Deep stuff comes up. You might cry. Others might cry. The space we create is a locked box. There is no judgment. Beginning writers can learn from those more seasoned and those more seasoned can tap into the rawness they first experienced when they put pen to page.
For more information or to begin the enrollment process, please fill out the form below. Theodosia Sparks Partial Scholarships available for financial hardship, for all workshops and retreats. Please indicate your interest for details on how to apply.
Chapter One Workshop is a one of a kind experience that every female writer should take if they find themselves struggling for inspiration. I stopped writing for years and could never seem to find the spark to light my creative flame. However, after attending the workshop, I find I cannot contain the blaze of inspiration that runs wild inside of me.
— Joey
A woman once described a friend of hers as being such a keen listener that even the trees leaned toward her as if they were speaking their innermost secrets into her listening ears.
—Linda Hogan
How often do you sit and listen to the birds and the wind? How often do you sit with a group of women and listen deeply to their words? Four times a year I bring a group of women into the woods for a time of listening, both to the trees and to each other. We meditate. We read Lucille Clifton and Joy Harjo and Naomi Shihab Nye. We eat nourishing and delicious food. We laugh. A lot. We make new friends. We grow deeper into relationship with friends we already have.
I believe having empathy toward another person is one of the greatest gifts we can give to the world. I have seen over and over again the powerful results of spending an entire weekend connecting and empathizing with the lives and experiences of others. My hope is that you leave the weekend feeling loved and listened to. My hope is that you return to your life with a renewed confidence in your voice, buoyed and strengthened by the memories of our special weekend.
What to Expect
You will read poetry. A lot of it. You will hear women share their stories and expose their vulnerabilities. And you will, hopefully, feel comfortable enough to share your stories, too. This isn’t a retreat where your writing will be critiqued. This is a retreat for anyone who wants to celebrate writing and female community, to experience how writing can nourish you, whether you never do it or you do it daily. Like Chapter One Workshop, we will do timed exercises and I ask that you be willing to share your first drafts. We aren’t striving for perfection, we are striving to go deeper in our relationships with our writing and with the women in the room.
For more information or to begin the enrollment process, please fill out the form below. Theodosia Sparks Partial Scholarships available for financial hardship, for all workshops and retreats. Please indicate your interest for details on how to apply.
The Female Experience Weekend
Going into Jennifer’s retreat weekend, the only expectations I had, were the ones I put on myself. Which is why, it’s no small feat that Jennifer was able to lift that weight off and give me the freedom and support I needed to dull the voice of my harshest critic: myself.
— Maris