Creative Writing Workshops
with Terry Ehret
Sitting Room Workshop Participants
The Sitting Room, 170 East Cotati Avenue
Cost: $180 for eight week session
plus $20 donation to the Sitting Room
Workshops are open to all writers, prose and poetry, beginning and experienced, male and female, young and old, or anything in between.
To reserve a space or find out more about these workshops, e-mail tehret99@comcast.net.
$50 deposit required to hold your space.
Spring Workshops 2010
Monday Poetry Workshop
The Visionary Poetry of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
Meeting times: Mondays 9 AM to noon Meeting Dates: February 15, 22, March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, April 5
This workshop will give those who enjoy reading and writing poetry a chance to gather with like-minded folk to explore in depth a particular poet or poetic movement and to take from this inspiration for our own writing.
In the fall, we will read selections by the poets of the Imagist movement, focusing on the early poetry of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle).
H.D. was an American poet, novelist, and memoirist, who lived from 1886-1964. She moved from Philadedelphia to London in 1911, and joined a circle of avant garde writers which included Ezra Pound, D.H. Lawrence, Richard Aldington, Wallace Stevens, and others. The Imagist style emphasized clarity of imagery (“no ideas but in things”), and free-verse. H.D.’s later writing developed this aesthetic to incorporate a more female-centric version of modernism.
Discussion of the Imagists and H.D.’s work will be linked with writing prompts and exercises for writers interested in generating new work. The workshop will continue in the Spring of 2010, for those interested in H.D.’s later visionary work.
Friday Prose Poem Workshop
Meeting Times: Fridays 9 AM to noon
Meeting Dates: February 12, 19, 26, March 5, 12, 19, 26, April 2
What exactly is a prose poem? Happily, the form defies strict definitions, leaving its practitioners free to invent and discover. The prose poem can be lyrical or narrative, philosophical or musing. It can be as brief as a sentence and as long as a page or two.
During the first four weeks, we will read and discuss selected short prose pieces by international, national, and local authors. Spring 2010 writers TBA.
Each of these classes will include a free-write or a structured writing exercise, using the week’s featured author for inspiration. During the second four weeks, participants will bring in their own prose poems for workshop discussion and conversation.
West Ireland Literary Tour and Writing Workshop
I am offering a twelve-day literary tour and writing retreat in West Ireland in the summer of 2010. The deadline for signing up is November 15, 2009. The trip is limited to 5 travelers. Currently the dates I am looking at are the first two weeks in July.
Participants will stay at a private lodge or bed and breakfast in the County Clare village of Ballyvaughan. The itinerary includes day trips to various sites in Counties Galway and Clare, including Coole Park, the Burren, Cliffs of Moher, an excursion by boat to the Aran Islands, and W.B. Yeats’s homes at Thoor Ballylee and Sligo. Travel will be by private car/minivan. To cap the twelve-day literary adventure, participants will enjoy a Medieval banquet with Irish song and poetry at Dunguaire Castle in Kinvara.
Ballyvaughan and its neighboring villages of Kinvara (to the west) and Doolin (to the east) are among the most scenic places in Ireland, nestled between the hills of the Burren and the sea, on the southern shore of Galway Bay. We are a short drive from Poulnabrone Dolmen, a burial tomb more than 5,000 years old. The area surrounding Ballyvaughan is a limestone or karst region of haunting beauty.
Besides the tour described above, this is also planned as a writers’ workshop, including eight writing sessions with the chance to share your work in a supportive group.
The cost for the literary tour and workshop is $2,350 for twelve days. The price includes private room, breakfast, lunch, some dinners, transportation, writing sessions, and all the side trips listed above. Air fare is not included in the price, but currently the cost of a round-trip flight in July is around $1,000.
For more information, visit the website at http://www.westireland.wordpress.com or contact Terry Ehret at tehret99@comcast.net.
