2017 Oaxaca Women’s Creative Writing + Yoga Retreat: Lifting Your Creative Voice
For the 7th year, women will gather in retreat for a week of creative writing, daily yoga, meditation and exploration in Oaxaca, Mexico. Our workshop is limited to 10 people. Will you be one of them? Some of us are novices. Others are published poets and writers. All are welcome and encouraged. If this is […]
Exquisite Corpse Poem 2015, Oaxaca Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat
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 […]
In Transit and Transition: From North Carolina to Oaxaca
The past two months that I have been in North Carolina have been filled with visiting dear friends, doing a lot of creative writing that includes poetry, creative non-fiction and personal narrative, attending a women’s writing retreat, planning new workshops, and keeping Mexico on my mind. I tell friends that I love it when I’m […]
Oaxaca Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat 2014: Lifting Your Creative Voice
4th Annual Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat. Arrive Friday, February 28, leave Saturday, March 8, 2014–8 nights, 9 days. We are women who have something to say. We keep journals, notes, drafts of unpublished material. Or, we dream of writing and never have. Ideas percolate and we want to develop them. Perhaps we have […]
Third Annual Oaxaca Women’s Creative Writing + Yoga Retreat: Lifting Your Creative Voice
Arrive Friday, March 8, leave Saturday, March 16, 2013–8 nights, 9 days. Our Third Annual Oaxaca Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat: Lifting Your Creative Voice is a workshop based in the Zapotec weaving village of Teotitlan del Valle. Imagine a setting so beautiful that it inspires all the best within you to write and […]
Photo Diaries: Blending Photography and Prose
What is photojournalism? Our workshop instructor June Finfer, Chicago documentary filmmaker/photographer/playwright explains it this way: It is making a picture, capturing the connection, creating something out of what you are feeling as you go beyond the surface of what you see. Our charge this week is to make photographs and then write about impressions that […]
Vocal Yoga: Medicine Melodies, Ah Ohm Hoong Rahm Zah
A moment remembered from the Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat: Our yoga guide Beth Miller gathers us around her in a circle. We sit on chairs, backs tall. At the head of the room is the traditional Zapotec altar complete with candlesticks and an incense burner ready for the next celebration. Forefinger touches thumb […]
Food and Poetry: Writing About Eating, Ingredients and the Kitchen
After our cooking class with Reyna Mendoza Ruiz, Robin Greene, MFA, led us in a writing about food discussion. She referred us to Poet Laureate Mark Strand’s poem, “Pot Roast.” He uses words masterfully: gaze, sit, spoon, “I bend, I raise my fork in praise.” We come to a place where we are ‘eating poetry.’ […]
Creative Writing Workshop in Oaxaca: Soft and Hard Sounds of Language
“Writers pay attention to the emotional quality of the sounds,” says our workshop leader Robin Greene, MFA. Think of the word “mother,” she continues and the comforting “mmmmm” sound. The quality of the sounds are the tools to create an emotion. The hard sounds of “t” and “k” convey the harshness of an emotion as […]
Creative Writing: Wherever you go is where you are.
Creative writing is creative ignorance, according to Robin Greene, MFA. Robin is the author of several books: poetry, non-fiction and memoir, and fiction. As she gathered us around the table for the women’s creative writing and yoga retreat, she talked about what it means to write for her. Then, she opened it up for our […]
Oaxaca, Mexico Women’s Writing and Yoga Retreat 2012: Lifting Your Creative Voice
Oaxaca Women’s Writing and Yoga Retreat: Lifting Your Creative Voice, Arrive March 2-Depart March 9 — 7 nights, 8 days Add-ons: Arrive March 1 and take a regional cooking class on March 2. Depart on March 10 and go on an artisan villages excursion on March 9. Imagine a setting so beautiful that it inspires […]
Upcoming Oaxaca Cultural Navigator Events in 2011 (Stay Tuned for More!)
Oaxaca, Mexico Women’s Yoga Retreat
Oaxaca Women’s Yoga Retreat with Beth Miller, July 5-11, 2011 — for beginners and all levels of yoga practice Deepen your awareness and expand your perspective as you join us for this 6-night, 7-day retreat based in the Zapotec village of Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico. This women-only program is perfect for mothers and daughters, […]
A Gift: Lifting Your Creative Voice Chapbook from the Oaxaca Women’s Writing Retreat
Today I received an extraordinary gift. Morgen, one of the participants from our women’s writing and yoga retreat, has collected the product of what we wrote and spoke during our week together in March and created a chapbook. I received this just moments ago as did the other women who were with us. It came […]
I’ve Been Gone for a While, Immersed in Poetry, Vocal Yoga, Temescal, and the Joy of Being With Creative Women
We began each day last week with yoga at eight o’clock in the morning, arising to rooster crows, the beat of the loom next door, the bark of the dog upstairs, the donkey brays. There were eleven of us — all women, joining together to lift our voices through the written word, through the sonorous […]
Oaxaca Poetry: In Front of the Turquoise Door (En el frente de la puerta turquesa)
Saturday, March 5, Oaxaca Women’s Writing and Yoga Retreat: We did an hour of yoga this morning, stretching and vocal sonorous yoga, then had a delicious breakfast, followed by a three-hour stretch of writing starting out with 20 minutes of meditation. We listened to each other, then wrote on our own, then returned to read […]
Women’s Creative Writing & Yoga Retreat March 2011 Update
It’s five weeks to go before we gather in Teotitlan del Valle for the Oaxaca women’s writing and yoga retreat from March 4-10. Robin Greene, MFA, our writing instructor, and Beth Miller, our yoga instructor, are putting the finishing touches on the final schedule. For complete retreat description click this link: https://oaxacaculture.com/2010/06/13/oaxaca-womens-writing-retreat-2011-lifting-your-creative-voice/ There is still […]