Memoir is a way to express where we are, where we have been and where we are going. Both women and men are welcome to participate. Everyone has an important story to tell.
Arrive Sunday March 13, 2016 and depart Saturday, March 19, 2016.
This six-day intensive writing workshop uses memoir to position the self and understand our worlds. We’ll focus on themes related to life’s journeys, starting with roots and family stories. Using inspiration drawn from food, art, nature, politics and more, we’ll tell our own tales of culture, identity, change, loss and transformation.
As a literary nonfiction genre, memoir represents reminiscence — a story, an event or a turning point. Akin to autobiography, memoir can have more focus and is similar to narrative nonfiction. However you choose to approach it, each of us has a story to tell about the evolution of our life and how we came to this place called now. We open this door to you to bring your memoir to life – to start it, continue it or take it to its rightful conclusion.
Memoir writing raises the issue of truth—is what we remember accurate, and is that even important? Craft and focus allow truth to emerge within the container of writing. Ruth Benedict beautifully said: Experience, contrary to common belief, is mostly imagination. Combining both experience and imagination, we’ll tell our stories.
We will also learn and explore classic and traditional memoir forms, including the letter, the list, the diary, personal essay, and the haibun (poetry with prose). Expect examples from the ancient world, Japan, Mexico, and contemporary literature.
In addition, there will be an emphasis on revision and completion, and on writing for an audience. We include an overview of markets for memoir, including short pieces, personal blogs, and independent publishers. Each participant will also meet with Miriam privately for a personal review and coaching session.
About Workshop Leader Miriam Sagan
Miriam Sagan, associate professor in creative writing at Santa Fe (NM) Community College, where she created and directs the creative writing program, is our memoir writing workshop leader. Miriam has over twenty-five award-winning books of memoir, poetry and fiction published with academic presses, independent publishers, and well-known literary presses. Honors include a New Mexico Book Award, Best Memoir of the Year from Independent Publishers Association, Pushcart Prize nominations, and a finalist from New Mexico PEN women, and Mountains and Plains Booksellers.
She has taught workshops at the Aspen Writer’s Conference, Taos Institute of Arts, Wheaton College, Antioch College, Colorado College, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, and the Border Book Festival.
A versatile author, Miriam Sagan’s published books include poetry, fiction, memoir as well as writing techniques. In the past several years, she has participated in mixed-media installations that include writing, poetry and art.
Miriam’s work has appeared in over 200 magazines in the United States, Canada, England, Japan, and France, including: Agni Review, American Poetry Review, Blue Mesa Review, Boston Phoenix, Christian Science Monitor, Exquisite Corpse, Family Circle, Fish Drum, Frank, Hollis Critic, Indiana Review, Luna, Mademoiselle Magazine, Maenad, Mothering Magazine, Ms. Magazine, New Mexico Humanities Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Paragraph, Permafrost, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, Poetry Now, Poets On, The Sun, Yellow Silk, and West Branch.
She is editor of Another Desert: Jewish Poetry of New Mexico, Sherman Asher Publishing 1998, with Joan Logghe; and New Mexico Poetry Renaissance: 41 Poets, a Community on Paper, Red Crane, 1994, with Sharon Niederman. Benjamin Franklin Award.
Miriam Sagan holds degrees in writing and English from Harvard University and Boston University.
Her blog, Miriam’s Well, has a thousand daily readers. The blog has published and promoted the work of hundreds of writers and artists, with a special emphasis on Santa Fe’s West Side and Railyard neighborhoods
About Norma Schafer
Norma Schafer has produced arts and educational programs in Oaxaca, Mexico, through Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC since 2006. She is a published writer and photographer. The workshops she organizes are attended by participants from throughout the U.S., Canada and from as far as Australia. During her twenty-five year career in higher education, Norma has produced national award-winning programs for Indiana University, University of Virginia, George Washington University, and The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She holds the B.A. from California State University at Northridge and the M.S. from the University of Notre Dame.
The Workshop Schedule
Our location is inspiring and tranquil. You are immersed in an indigenous village with 8,000 years of language, history and culture.
Sunday, March 13: Arrive and check-in to our Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, B&B inn. Informal supper included for those who arrive by 8 p.m. (D)
Monday, March 14 to Friday, March 18: After breakfast, meet for learning session and workshop. The workshop is time to give and take feedback about works in progress. Take a lunch break and then use the afternoon for independent writing and/or to explore this ancient Zapotec village. Dinner is daily at 7:30 p.m. You may want to gather on the rooftop terrace to watch the sunset, sip a refreshment and talk with instructor and participants, or spend your time in evening writing and reflection.
Friday, March 18: End-of-Workshop Evening Celebration and Reading – an opportunity to select your best of week work to read before the group.
Saturday, March 19: After breakfast, leave for home or continue your travels independently.
What Is Included
For participants in residence, daily 8:30 a.m. breakfast and 7:20 p.m. dinner are included in your workshop fee. Daily lunch is on your own. The workshop includes all instruction, a private coaching session with Miriam, and the gala celebration dinner. For non-resident participants, lodging and meals are not included except noted below.
Optional Activities
During the week, we will schedule optional outings that are sure to inspire your creativity: cooking class, temescal sweat lodge, Zapotec massage, weaving and natural dye demonstrations, local hikes, visits to nearby archeological sites and more. We will send more details and costs of these activities to you before the workshop starts.
About Lodging and Accommodations
Our workshop is in the rural Zapotec village of Teotitlan del Valle. Yes, there is Internet connection and coffee shops that prepare good cappuccino and chai latte! The bed and breakfast inn where we stay is a family home within a large patio. Accommodations are clean and basic. We offer a few rooms with private bath. Other rooms share a guest bath across the courtyard.
Workshop Cost
Non-Resident Participant: $695 per person, does not include lodging or meals. It includes all instruction, one private one-hour coaching session, one gala dinner.
Resident Participant: A limited number of double occupancy rooms with private bath, and single occupancy rooms with private bath are available. Please indicate your preference below. Requests are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis.
[ ] $795 per person, shared room, double occupancy with shared bath.
[ ] $995 per person, shared room, double occupancy, with private bath.
[ ] $1,095 per person, single room with private bath.
Residency Program cost includes 6 nights lodging, 6 breakfasts, 6 dinners, all instruction, one private coaching session for one-hour.
The program does NOT include airfare, taxes, tips, travel insurance, liquor or alcoholic beverages, some meals, and local transportation to and from Oaxaca city.
Reservations and Cancellations
A 50% deposit guarantees your reservation. The last payment for the balance due (including any supplemental costs) shall be made by January 15, 2016. We use PayPal for all deposits and final payments. Tell us you are ready to register and we will send you an invoice for the deposit.
If cancellation is necessary, please notify us in writing by email. After January 15, 2016, no refunds are possible. However, we will make every possible effort to fill your reserved space. If you cancel before January 15, 2016, we will refund 50% of your deposit.
Required Travel and Medical Insurance
We require that you take out an international travel insurance policy that includes $500,000 of emergency evacuation and medical insurance before you begin your trip. We will ask for proof of purchase. Thank you for understanding since unforeseen circumstances are possible and that’s what “accidents” are.
To get your questions answered and to register, contact: norma.schafer@icloud.com
Norma Schafer, Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC, produces this workshop.
Cafe Culture in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca
Tucked into Pino Suarez #45 at the corner of the main drag, Benito Juarez, in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, is Cafe Vid. Almost smack in the middle of town. It has seven tables and 15 chairs, with all the warmth and intimacy you can imagine including excellent, custom-made coffee drinks and delicious snacks.
It’s what you might call a coffeehouse if you lived in San Francisco or Los Angeles a generation past, complete with recorded jazz, blues, and reggae playing in the background. This would be a perfect meeting spot for writing or conversation.
The owners are friends who have known each other growing up all their lives in this tight-knit village: Erika Mendoza Vicente and Miguel Esai Montanez Pedro, both age 26, and Sandra Vasquez Perez, age 25.
The cafe has been in operation for five years. Erika, Esai and Sandra saved to finance the start-up themselves. In preparation for ownership and management, they each worked in the food industry in Oaxaca to get experience. They told me this was an experiment when they were young (smile). They have learned a lot in the intervening years.
Erika, Esai and Sandra used their own money to outfit the cafe, buying all the commercial grade equipment mostly from restaurant supply companies. The Waring commercial waffle maker, comes from Guanajuato, made in the USA.
Each is an accomplished barista. They learned to make coffee from the owner of La Brujula, one of Oaxaca’s great roasters and makers, who taught them the nuances of espresso, cappuccino, latte, frappe, moka and more.
The coffee beans here are the best. Cafe Vid buys from La Brujula and Nuevo Mundo, another of Oaxaca’s excellent organic roasters.
The menu includes flavored Italian sodas, hot and cold coffees, teas, hot Oaxaca chocolate, and frappes. You can order waffles, crepes (sweet and savory), homemade cheesecake, light sandwiches and baguettes of cheese and turkey ham.
You might want to save your appetite for an incredible Belgium waffle topped with fresh fruit and a drizzle of cajeta, big enough to share. Try the crepe spread with Nutella, then neatly folded into a triangle. You could pretend you are in Paris, if you wish. But there’s no need. You are in Teotitlan del Valle, one of the best villages in all of Mexico.
Cafe Vid offers a frequent drinker card. Get seven stamps and the next drink is free. If you come to stay overnight for a few days at either Casa Elena or Las Granadas, two local guesthouses, it wouldn’t be hard to reach this threshold.
Every Zapotec has dreams. Erika, Esai and Sandra dream of a bigger space, a larger menu. They want to make breads and more desserts, roast their own coffee beans. I may even give them a lesson in how to make and bake a New York style cheesecake, a speciality I developed many years ago when I owned a gourmet cookware shop and cooking school in the midwest.
These young people are dedicated, hard-working full-time weavers, so the cafe opens daily from 6 to 10 p.m., seven days a week. When you are in Teotitlan, consider a visit. Call them on their cell phone: 01 951 186 0743. The only thing lacking is an internet connection, since they can’t get phone landline service from the closest telephone pole because it’s at capacity. Darn.
Other good village options: Cafe Drupa, Avenida Benito Juarez, up the hill two blocks beyond Av. 2 de Abril on the left. A family operation connected to a weaving workshop. Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. with wi-fi connection, good coffee, paninis and more.
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Dining and Lodging, Teotitlan del Valle, Travel & Tourism
Tagged beverage, cafe, Cafe Vid, capuccino, Coffee, espresso, food, Italian, Mexico, Oaxaca, Teotitlan del Valle