2018 Writing Workshop is Cancelled
We are moving the retreat back to the quiet of Teotitlan del Valle from Oaxaca City and lowering the price to make it more affordable for you to attend!
This is our 8th year for the Oaxaca Women’s Creative Writing Retreat. We welcome neophyte women writers and those of us who are more seasoned and want to go to the next level. Some of us have published and many of us dream about it. We may write memoir, poetry, essays, creative non-fiction and fiction. The workshop-conference is a haven for exploration and encouragement. Writers of all genres and ages are invited.
Teotitlan del Valle atop Zapotec temple
Friday, March 2 – Friday, March 9, 2018 : New, Lower Price
- $1,195 double room with private bath (sleeps 2)
- $895 single room with courtyard bath (shared by several)
- $1,495 single room with private bath (sleeps 1)
- Non-resident: $650 per person (no lodging or food)
Who Attends? Women with something to say.
- You keep journals, notes, drafts of unpublished material.
- You write on the backs of envelopes and scrap paper.
- You dream of writing and never have.
- Ideas percolate, and you want to capture and develop them.
- You want to merge the written word with photos, drawing or collage.
- Perhaps you have written and/or published a while ago, let the writer’s life lapse, and you want renewal and encouragement.
- You are a writer, and may want guidance and support to continue an unfinished piece or publish it.
You arrive by Friday evening, March 2 and leave Friday morning, March 9, 2018. The workshop fee includes 7 nights lodging, all breakfasts, all writing instruction and workshop sessions, gentle yoga/stretching several times during the week, a personal coaching/feedback session with the instructor, and a grand finale celebration reading and dinner. You might want to arrive a day early to settle in to avoid a late night arrival or missed connection.
Workshop Leader: Professor Robin Greene
Our workshop leader and coach is published author/poet and university professor Robin Greene. With her help and feedback, with participation from the group, you’ll gain knowledge and perspective about the art and craft of writing. There will be plenty of time to retreat for writing — what you come here for!
We encourage you to write in the genre that best suits you: memoir, journal, poetry, personal essay, creative nonfiction or fiction. Or, explore one that you have been hesitant about trying.
Whatever your writing genre, you are welcome!
Optional yoga sessions are designed to open you up to stretch your writing capabilities. As you flex your body, you relax and stretch your imagination. Yoga develops core strength to find voice and creative center.
What Participants Say
- I learned I am fully capable of being the writer I dreamed of becoming.
- The site, teaching and program structure creates a truly transcendent experience of enormous value.
- I was challenged and that turned out to be exactly what I needed.
- Far exceeded expectations. Got many suggestions for how to write healing stories.
- It was wonderful!
- The combination of writing, yoga, meditation and shared sisterhood is transformational.
- Oaxaca feels safe, safer than my hometown in the USA.
- I identified a writing project that engages and excites me.
- The balance of intensive writing workshops, cultural excursions and yoga lead to a powerful experience on all levels.
- The feedback was so thoughtful. I honestly can’t think of anything I would change.
A healthy breakfast awaits you with brewed coffee (2017 retreat)
Accommodations — Lodging
We are based on a quiet residential street in the Zapotec village of Teotitlan del Valle. We will occupy two family operated inns, located within steps of each other. The families live in residence, so it’s a great chance to practice your Spanish and to dine like the locals. Accommodations are basic, simple and clean.
Blue corn quesadillas
Our site is conducive to reflection and writing. The quiet retreat center offers plenty of private spaces to gather and express your thoughts. If you want street or rural inspiration, there is plenty to capture your attention, too.
Taking a lunch break from writing.
Topics participants write about have included family and relationships, women’s issues, health, health care and diagnoses, pain and recovery, loss, food and eating, and the spirit of life. We have heard voices that give us pause to laugh, cry and commiserate. The atmosphere is supportive and encouraging.
From Instructor Robin Greene
“The writing retreat is very relaxed. I ask each participant to send me a work in progress or writing sample before the workshop. This gives me an opportunity to tailor the workshop to strengths and needs. Our goal is to develop craft and we will support each other in this learning process.
I’ll also have plenty of prompts, writing exercises, and suggestions—and, of course, as women write, we energize each other. I like to encourage women to find their voices so that the retreat experience is personally meaningful. In addition to one scheduled conference with each person, I’m available for feedback and coaching throughout our time together. And, because I teach creative writing, I have a repertoire of techniques and strategies to share with writers at all levels.
Roses on the writing table with journal notes
We cannot promise that you will win a poetry prize, as did one of our participants after writing her winning poem at the retreat, or be published in The Sun Magazine and Minerva Rising literary journals as several past participants have. We CAN promise that you will explore, develop and deepen as a writer if you are open to the experience. Plus, you will make new friendships with like-minded people.
What the Retreat Includes:
- 21-hours of group workshop and feedback
- One-hour individual coaching session
- Focused sessions to hone your skills: grammar, reading in public, publishing, grammar, editing
- 7 nights lodging
- 7 breakfasts
- 5 dinners including celebratory final dinner
- Final Group Reading with Celebratory Fiesta Dinner
Optional activities you can arrange on your own:
- Optional yoga sessions that focus on stretching and flexing
- Afternoon visits to archeological sites, mezcal distilleries, or an outing to Oaxaca City
2017 Exquisite Corpse Poem
The Exquisite Corpse Poem is a collaboration. Each writer in the group contributes a random sentence or phrase that then becomes part of a complete poem. The result is surprising and creative! We do this each year as part of our closing ceremonies for the Oaxaca Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat. For 2015, our mission was different however.
We adapt the Exquisite Corpse Poem based on the game developed by the Parisian Surrealist Movement. Professor Robin Greene, our writing instructor and coach, takes liberties with the concept and edits what we have contributed into something more coherent than abstract, but always beautiful!
In Oaxaca, Everything is a Poem
An Exquisite Corpse Poem by the Writing & Yoga Retreat Women of 2017
Cool blue walls and pebbled floors surround us
as words flow like cool water over our sun-heated
skins…. Is everything a poem here? Even the ants
and the humans, hot, lucky, looking for their match?
Even the horseshoe-shaped bar that spills its words
onto the table where the watermelon butchers work,
while we women writers of Oaxaca speak out our
sentences through open but barred windows, only
to find a white cat sitting on a window ledge, then
rising to strut in beauty like an unwashed dream,
while we sit cross-legged on wide beds, hearing
city dogs bark, listening as the day lifts into evening,
and the radical sky turns one woman’s hands
such dark indigo blue that the goddesses feel envy
and drink her language like mescal? Is everything
a poem here? So that even if we could tent the house
and save our words, the termites still might never
leave, and the purest truth might never know regret,
might end up a doo-wop squatter, living life as if
back in the girdle-Ike years again, growing like cactus,
hard and full of tears until all hope plays dead.
At the daily workshop sessions to discuss and get helpful feedback
What Women Say . . . “I better learned how to put together a writerly life. The coaching session will help me stay on track. I enjoyed listening to and evaluating each others’ work. What a great group of women.” –Leslie Larson, California
“I came with the hope of being rejuvenated. I am leaving with a lightness and grounding that is beyond comprehension.” –Rebecca S. King, North Carolina
“The instruction was excellent and supportive. The personal coaching session offered me a chance to talk about my writing in a way I never had before. The workshops are especially valuable because the feedback is so thoughtful.” –Susan Lesser, New York
“I discovered that my writing entertains people! Yoga is the best I have ever experienced. A perfect combo of the physical and spiritual. –LeeAnn Weigold, British Columbia, Canada
Daily village market offers inspiration
“There is amazing resonance between the writing and yoga teaching — vigorous, solid, and accepting.” –Deborah Morris, M.D., North Carolina
“It was all perfect. You gave us a beautiful writing workshop in a beautiful village setting and you also gave us a strong community-of-women bond that will far outlast this conference. Mil gracias!” — Katie Kingston, MFA, Trinidad, Colorado
“The quality of the teachers was stellar and the combination was a perfect fit for me. Robin has a clarity that is lovely, supportive, truth-telling, knowledgeable, superbly skilled. Beth is a beautiful, beautiful teacher. Combining the yoga and sound with writing was profound.” — Nancy Coleman, Portland, Maine
Optional visits to local village artisans
“Robin’s knowledge impressed and guided me throughout the week. She is one of the most generous people, instructors and writers I have ever met. The week gave me the insight to investigate life and write about it.” Kathryn Salisbury, North Carolina
“The week helped with my intention to write my book. There were too many valuable parts to list! We experienced an amazing time together, sweating leaves, meditation, chanting, writing, and honoring our lives. This was an awesome experience.” — Susan Florence, MFA, Ojai, California
“We learned from the other women in the group, from the culture, the language and people in the village. It was magical.” –Bridget Price, Mexico City
Handmade beeswax candles at Casa Viviana
Your Writing Workshop Leader: Robin Greene
Robin Greene is Professor of English and Writing and Director of the Writing Center at Methodist University in Fayetteville, NC, where she held the McLean Endowed Chair in English from 2013-2016. Greene has published two collections of poetry (Memories of Light and Lateral Drift), two editions of a nonfiction book (Real Birth: Women Share Their Stories), and a novel (Augustus: Narrative of a Slave Woman).
Greene’s second novel, The Shelf Life of Fire, is forthcoming from Light Messages Publishing, and Greene is currently working on a sequel. Greene is a past recipient of a North Carolina-National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Writing, and has published over ninety pieces of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in literary journals.
Greene has received two teaching awards, the latest of which, the Cleveland Award, received in 2017, is the most prestigious award offered by the university where she teaches. Greene has given over a hundred academic presentations, literary readings, and writing workshops in a variety of venues throughout the US. Additionally, Greene is cofounder and editor of Longleaf Press, a literary press that primarily publishes poetry, and cofounder of Sandhills Dharma Group, a Buddhist meditation group.
She holds a M.A. in English from Binghamton University and a M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Art at Norwich University.
See Robin’s website: www.robingreene-writer.com
Perhaps an evening mezcal tasting can fit into your plans!
Preliminary Workshop Outline
- Friday, March 2, travel day, arrive and check-in. Dinner included.
- Saturday, March 3, introductions, orientation, workshop session, writing exercises. Breakfast. Lunch and Dinner OYO.
- Sunday, March 4, workshop session, writing exercises. Breakfast. Lunch and Dinner OYO.
- Monday, March 5, workshop session, writing exercises. Breakfast. Lunch and Dinner OYO.
- Tuesday, March 6, workshop session, writing exercises. Breakfast. Lunch and Dinner OYO.
- Wednesday, March 7, workshop session, writing exercises. Lunch and Dinner OYO.
- Thursday, March 8, yoga, reading preparation session. Reading and Gala Fiesta Dinner. Breakfast and Dinner. Lunch on your own.
- Friday, March 9, departure. You may choose to extend your time in Oaxaca City or environs. We can also recommend guides to take you to craft villages if you choose to stay on.
Celebratory Fiesta Dinner and Group Reading
Each Workshop Day includes breakfast, writing sessions, plus scheduled individual coaching sessions with Professor Robin Greene. We will include yoga sessions several times during the week together. Each day you will have choices for how you will spend your time — in retreat to write, to meander historic cobblestone streets and village markets, gather at cafes to discuss subject possibilities or work in process, or to schedule an optional massage. 
Tasty food from home cooked to master village chefs
Special Pop-Up Events!
During the week, we might invite noted artisans to come to the B&B for special showings of their work. This might include textiles, alebrijes (carved and painted wood figures), clothing, pottery and other regional crafts.
The workshop does NOT include airfare, taxes, tips, travel insurance, liquor or alcoholic beverages, lunches and dinners (except the welcome dinner and final celebratory fiesta) and local transportation to and from the airport to our B&B. We will give you detailed instructions for how to get from the Oaxaca airport to our hotel after you register. We reserve the right to substitute instructors and alter the program as needed.
Have you tried the chapulines?
Reservations and Cancellations. Send us an email to register. A 50% deposit is required to guarantee your spot. The last payment for the balance due shall be paid by January 10, 2018. We accept payment with PayPal only. We will send you an itemized invoice when you tell us you are ready to register. After January 10, refunds are not possible. You may send a substitute in your place. If you cancel before January 10, we will refund 50% of your deposit.
Required–Travel Health/Accident Insurance: We require that you carry international accident/health/emergency evacuation insurance. Proof of insurance must be sent at least two weeks before departure. We also ask that you complete a witnessed waiver of responsibility, holding harmless Norma Schafer and Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC. We will send this to you several weeks before the workshop start. Unforeseen circumstances happen!
Workshop Details and Travel Tips. Before the workshop begins, we will email you instructions to get to the workshop site from the airport, and documents that includes extensive travel tips and information. To get your questions answered and to register, contact: oaxacaculture@me.com
This retreat is produced by Norma Schafer, Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC. We reserve the right to make itinerary changes and substitutions as necessary.
Wendy reads her piece about heavy lifting.
Women’s Words, Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat Closes for Another Year
Our fifth annual Oaxaca Women’s Creative Writing Retreat just ended. After an intensive week of writing, listening to each other’s words and offering feedback, our participants dispersed to upstate New York, Denver, Manhattan, North Carolina, the north coast of British Columbia. We are a diverse group. Our words resonate, are distinctive and universal.
I have been able to do not much more than organize and actively participate, which I do each year. This time, I wrote, rewrote and rewrote a poem that was finally ready to submit to Minerva Rising literary magazine where I am a monthly contributor. It was hard and satisfying work. I started a creative non-fiction piece that could likely become the foothold for a memoir. Then, I wrote another about the Aztec goddess Tonantzin, mother earth. I had no time to take many photos or write a blog post.
This sense of place inspires us. Others wrote poetry, memoir, creative non-fiction. Some wrote fiction. Mostly they wrote about relationships between mother and daughter, with husbands and boyfriends, childhood memories, Christmas and grandchildren, the meaning of food, the slipping away of time, death, aging, youthful exuberance and misguided decisions, the strength of being a woman. This is important stuff however trivial it may seem. We listen. We say what works and what doesn’t work, what we understand or don’t.
Each morning began with yoga, a refreshing and cleansing way to begin a writing practice. One afternoon, we took the practice to Yagul archeological site where DNA testing of cave corn remnants confirmed that corn was first cultivated here about 8,000 years ago. It is a magical place high above the valley floor where the wind speaks.
We ate great local Zapotec food, strolled the Sunday Tlacolula market, wrote about these experiences, savored the deliciousness of culture and community in Teotitlan del Valle, and directed this energy into our writing.
We celebrated the upcoming wedding of Becky with flowers, flan, lots of tamales with yellow mole and chicken, and Magadelena’s handmade chocolate with almonds. She roasts her own cacao beans!
Hermalinda and her daughter-in-law came from San Felipe Usila to give us a private expoventa show and sale of the Chinanteco region’s fantastic textiles, woven on back strap looms and then intricately embroidered in cross-stitch.
The end of the week culminated with a public reading followed by a fiesta dinner. Many will return again next year, March 4-12, 2016, and we hope there will be space for you. Interested in participating? Contact us.
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Workshops and Retreats
Tagged class, conference, creative writing, memoir, Mexico, Oaxaca, poetry, retreat, workshop