retreat recap

I wanted to write about the retreat on Monday, but as soon as I arrived home, I had to shift gears and dive into class planning and prep. But I want to take some time now to say what an amazing weekend it was.

Friday and Saturday mornings were both spent in group craft meetings up in the Eagle’s Nest, the top floor of the Lodge that overlooks formidable pines and the snow-covered pond. When it’s sunny, the sun streams through the windows onto the pine table, and it’s the perfect place to read, write, and talk about writing.

Or sit by the fireplace and write...

And I was amazed again this year by the quality and volume of writing that was produced in a few short days. There is definitely something about Faith’s Lodge—built to offer comfort to those who have experienced tremendous losses—that unleashes something powerful -- a desperate need to connect, a hopeful rush of words. It's definitely a space built to allow people to dive into reflection.

In the early afternoons, I had individual manuscript conferences with the participants, and then, spent but exhilarated, I headed out the door, skis in hand. And around and around the small pond I went, letting the hiss of skis on snow propel me. I would stop periodically and stare up at the sky, at the tiniest snowflakes I’ve ever seen, glinting in the afternoon sun. 

On Saturday, after I skied the pond, I stopped at Sophia’s Bridge, named for the daughter that one of the participants lost to SIDS. And I just stood there, taking in the sun and snow and the incredible loss.

Saturday night, after we talked more about writing and had dinner, we went out to the bonfire and (after we finally got the wet logs to light) roasted marshmallows for s’mores and read our favorite poems. And when that was done, we dashed inside (it was 12º below zero after all).

Sunday morning was spent writing and reading and then goal setting. One of the participants (who had also recently lost a child) told me that it was the first morning in a long, long time that she woke up feeling inspired. What a gift to have been a part of that inspiration.

I’m hoping to raise even more money for Faith’s Lodge next year with a slightly bigger group. So mark your calendars for the last weekend in February 2012, and don’t miss out on three transformative days of writing, reading, and sharing with other mother writers. (Oh, and don't forget the wine and conversation and dark chocolate...)

Thanks, ladies, for making it such a wonderful retreat!

mother words retreat, day 1

When I arrived at Faith’s Lodge yesterday afternoon, the ground was covered in fresh snow, the sky was that brilliant winter blue, and the sun was illuminating the Aspen trees exactly the way it did last year—as if their peeling bark had been engulfed in white flames.  I took one deep breath of cold fresh air after another.

When I got to my room, I turned on the fireplace, and then I took a few minutes to just sit in gratitude, appreciating the quiet beauty of this place.

This retreat is not really a retreat for me—I’m in charge, so I’m wearing my teacher and coordinator hats—but this year I’m also going to try to dip into my own writing, to steal a little time in front of the fireplace with my laptop (or rather D’s laptop—Thanks, Babe!). I, too, need to remember what it feels like to play with words, to write myself into discovery.

The women on the retreat are amazing, as they were last year, and when we meet and they read their words, I’m astounded not only by their vast abilities as writers, but their honesty and bravery.  What a gift to facilitate such an amazing group of writers.

I hope that by the end of the long weekend, everyone is rededicated to their writing, ready to move in new directions and approach their work with fresh eyes. I hope I’ll feel that way, as well. 

So now I’m off to the fireplace to steal a forty five minutes for myself.

two spots still available!

I've been spending the week prepping for my current Mother Words class (with a wonderful group of writers!) and my new prose revision class that starts at the Loft on Monday night. But I've also been reading and preparing for the Mother Words Retreat at Faith's Lodge, which is next weekend. I can't wait!


There are still two open spaces for the retreat and there's still time to sign up. Join us for a long weekend of writing and reading and talking about craft and the writing life. (There will also be plenty of time for sleeping and snow-shoeing and long walks in the woods and sitting in front of the fireplace.) The retreat kicks off with a wine reception on Thursday evening. 


For more information, check out my website. To register, contact Marquetta at Faith's Lodge at 612-825-2073 or marquetta@faithslodge.org. 


Don't miss this opportunity to connect with a wonderful group of mother writers and help raise money for Faith's Lodge.

upcoming classes and retreats

January is flying by, which is hard to believe since I spend most of day closeted in my tiny office. But I'm so busy getting ready for AWP and my winter and spring classes that all the sudden I glance at the clock and it's time to walk down to the bus stop to get Stella.

Here's what I have coming up:

There are still two spots open for the 2nd annual Mother Words retreat at Faith’s Lodge February 24 – 27. Spend the weekend writing and relaxing and talking about craft with a group of mother writers amidst the quiet and luxury of Faith’s Lodge. For more information about the retreat, visit my website. To register, contact Marquetta Nickols at Faith’s Lodge at marquetta@faithslodge.org or 612-825-2073.

I’m also excited about my upcoming prose revision class at the Loft. It meets Monday nights February 21 – April 11, 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. Here's the description of that class:

After the First Draft: Prose Revision
You’ve finished the first draft of your short story, novel, or memoir. Now what do you do with it? This course will help you revision your writing and move beyond that first draft. We will discuss how to strengthen your characters, sustain your narrative threads, identify the heart of your piece, and make the most of your dialogue. We will read writers such as James Baldwin, Charles Baxter, Bernard Cooper, and Beth Kephart. In addition to lectures and in-class writing exercises, each student will have an opportunity to share and receive feedback on his or her work. To register for that class, visit The Loft.

And I also have four spots still open in my Spring online Mother Words class, which begins on March 23. Visit my website or contact me with questions or to register.

Lots of fun teaching coming up. I look forward to having a few of you in class!

2011 mother words writing retreat

There are still a few spots available for the 2nd annual Mother Words Writing Retreat at Faith’s Lodge.

When: 4 p.m. on Thursday, February 24 – 1 p.m. on Sunday, February 27

Where: Faith’s Lodge, Wisconsin

We’ll write, share our writing, discuss challenges with craft, and have time to connect with other mother writers in the luxury and quiet of Faith’s Lodge. Group meetings and individual conferences with me will help support you as you delve more deeply into your writing and learn to take risks on the page. Come immerse yourself in the writing life with other mothers who write.

Faith’s Lodge is located on 80 picturesque acres in Northwestern Wisconsin near the town of Webster, less than a two-hour drive from the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, less than one hour from Duluth/Superior and about four hours from Madison. The mission of Faith’s Lodge is to provide a place where parents and families facing the serious illness or loss of a child can retreat to reflect on the past, renew strength for the present, and build hope for the future.

You need not have experienced the loss of a child to attend the retreat. This retreat is for all mother writers. (But proceeds from the Mother Words Writing Retreat will benefit the children and families served by Faith’s Lodge.)

Cost: $650 (single room) or $550 (shared room, separate beds) – includes lodging, meals, and writing instruction

To register: Contact Marquetta Nickols at Faith’s Lodge at marquetta@faithslodge.org or 612-825-2073.

The Lodge has eight guest suites. Each suite features a private bath, fireplace, balcony/patio, flat screen TV, DVD player, small fridge, and coffee maker.

Please contact me with questions about the Mother Words Retreat. To learn more about Faith’s Lodge, visit www.faithslodge.org.

2011 mother words retreat

I’m excited to announce that the dates have been set for the 2nd Annual Mother Words Retreat!

Join me for a weekend retreat for mother-writers. We’ll write, share our writing, discuss challenges with craft, and have time to connect with other mother writers in the luxury and quiet of Faith’s Lodge. Group meetings and individual conferences will help support you as you delve more deeply into your writing and learn to take risks on the page. Come immerse yourself in the writing life with other mothers who write.

Where: Faith’s Lodge, Wisconsin

When: Thursday, February 24 - Sunday, February 27, 2011

Faith’s Lodge is located on 80 picturesque acres in Northwestern Wisconsin near the town of Webster, less than a two-hour drive from the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, less than one hour from Duluth/Superior, and about four hours from Madison. The mission of Faith’s Lodge is to provide a place where parents and families facing the serious illness or loss of a child can retreat to reflect on the past, renew strength for the present, and build hope for the future.

But you need not have experienced the loss of a child to attend the retreat. The Mother Words Retreat is for all mother writers. (Part of the proceeds will benefit the children and families served by Faith’s Lodge.)

The Lodge has eight guest suites, which can accommodate up to 10 people for the Mother Words Retreat. Each guest suite features a private bath, fireplace, balcony/patio, flat screen TV, DVD player, small fridge, and coffee maker. Meals are included.

Cost: $650 for single room, $550 for shared room (separate beds)

To register: Please contact Evelyn Nyberg at enyberg@faithslodge.org or 715-866-8200.

Please contact me with questions about the retreat. You can read about last year’s retreat here and here. And see a few photos here.

firefly memoir writing retreat

I'm happy to announce that I'm leading another writing retreat this summer. This will be a memoir writing retreat with Firefly Retreats, which will be held at Xanadu Island Bed and Breakfast in Battle Lake, Minnesota.

What: Memoir as Discovery

Description: Writing is an act of discovery. Dive into your writing and find out what you know. The retreat is a place to write, share writing, discuss elements of craft, and connect with other writers. In addition to group learning, students meet with me individually to delve more deeply into their writing and learn to take risks on the page.

When: June 14 - 17, 2010

Where: Xanadu Bed and Breakfast, Battle Lake, MN

The retreat begins 1:00 pm on Monday, June 14 and ends at noon Thursday, June 17. Most of the time we’ll spend writing, but we’ll take time for local color too. We’ll do our writing at Glendalough in a lodge that overlooks Annie Battle, a primitive lake restricted to non-motorized recreation.


Xanadu, where we’ll stay, is located on small peninsula jutting out into a lake. When we’re not writing, there’ll be time for recreation – paddle boat, fishing boat, water “toys”, bonfires – or just relaxing.

We'll eat dinner one night at Stella’s (wonderful name!), a favorite restaurant and wine bar in Battle Lake, and dine another night at a private home overlooking West Battle Lake.

Cost: $600

The cost of a retreat includes writing instruction, transportation to and from various venues, and meals. Accommodations are NOT included.

Participation is limited to 8 people. To book the retreat or for more information, call Firefly Retreats at 218.862.5510 or email firefly[at]arvig.net.

a few photos

Here are a few photos from the Mother Words Retreat.

The view.

The Great Room.

The sunny meeting room on the very top floor.

The evening ritual.

Reading some of our favorite poems and essays by the bonfire. (Yes, there were s'mores.)

What's not to love?

retreat recap

I wrote about arriving at Faith’s Lodge on Friday, about the feeling of that place, the incredible energy there. This energy only intensified, crystallized, as the weekend progressed.

The weather was perfect—in the 40s, bright sun, blue sky. (Don’t be afraid of Wisconsin in February!) As we sat in the top floor meeting room, sun streamed in the windows, melting snow dripped from the roof.

Of course, it wasn’t just the weather that filled us up. I have never been in a room full of women with such powerful stories; women who were willing to share these stories, grapple with them, write to the heart of them.

We talked about craft, about writing and publishing. We wrote. We listened to each other read what we’d written. We cried—a lot. We laughed—a lot. We drank a lot of wine. And by Sunday afternoon, everyone had made major breakthroughs with their writing: rethinking structure, making discoveries, focusing in on scene, reframing.

It’s amazing to be part of a writing breakthrough. There is something incredibly powerful in asking the questions, making the suggestions that help someone crack open a piece of writing and take it to the next level.

I’ve been thinking a lot about something that Kate St. Vincent Vogl mentioned in her interview a couple of weeks ago. She alluded to something I’ve heard writers—and especially writers of creative nonfiction—say before: that writing isn’t therapeutic. So many writers balk at this idea.

I think the reason they balk is because they want their work viewed as art and they think if it’s tied in any way to “therapy,” this will somehow undercut the work they’ve put into crafting their story.

I’ve talked about this with both my classes in the last weeks and I talked about it on the retreat. And this is what I think: if you are really diving in and fearlessly searching for your story in the material of your life, it’s impossible for you not to make discoveries, to gain perspective on the life you’ve lived.

I love what Philip Gerard says: “[A memoir is] not simply a scrapbook of memories to brood over or cherish, but a reckoning. That’s the reason to write a memoir: to find out what really happened in your life; to drive toward the fact behind all the other facts, and come to some understanding, however limited, of what it means—and accept that truth.”

But if you are really doing this work of “reckoning,” you will change, you will be able to make sense of the life you’ve lived in a new way. What’s not therapeutic about that?

Now, that the thing that differentiates writing for yourself—journaling—and successful memoir and essay lies in craft. Is it crafted? Has the writer been able to craft the raw material of his/her life?

But you can experience a transformation in the writing process and still end up with art.

It’s my job to help my students craft their stories into art, to find the best way to tell the stories they need to tell. And I hope—I really do hope—that in this process they make discoveries, process the material of their lives, let go of what they need to let go of.

This is the kind of thing that was happening all weekend—this kind of tremendous and important work. Maybe it was therapeutic. It was definitely the work of artists.

Now I’m home, and I’m filled with gratitude for these fine women with whom I spent the weekend, filled with gratitude for D and my girls. (Stella made me eight presents while I was gone—paper flowers and bags decorated with glitter, drawings of our family. And when I pulled the car up in front of our house on Sunday, she and Zoë were waiting on the porch, waving, smiling.)

And now I’m ready to write. I’m ready to walk bravely into words, just as I witnessed these fine writers do all weekend long.

(I’ll post photos in the next few days.)

retreat day 1 - the arrival

Yesterday morning I woke early with an oozing eye. This happens to me sometimes when I have a cold—the snot tries to exit through the tear duct of my left eye. I know. I know. I wish there was a more delicate way to say it, but there’s not.

I wasn’t too concerned about the eye during the day yesterday, but by evening, as I headed off to teach my creative nonfiction class, I realized it felt as if someone had emptied a shovel full of dirt onto my eyeball. By the end of my class, the left side of my face hurt, and it felt as though there might have been tiny shards of glass in that shovel of dirt.

Two of my students—both of whom are nurses—said that I should go to the doctor. “You need to get that looked at before you leave town.”

I sighed. Okay. But it was 9:45 and even Urgent Care was closed. I drove home. But things weren’t getting any better; by the time I walked into my house, I was convinced that my sinuses had ruptured and I was doomed—I would not be able to go to the retreat; the fluid would take over my face; my brain might explode. (Once I begin on this train of thought, it’s difficult to for me to redirect. I put my jacket back on and drove to the ER.)

The ER. What can I say? Three hours later—at 1:30 a.m.—I was finally home, a very expensive tube of antibiotic ointment in hand, my eye swollen shut.

I slept. Then this morning—was that just this morning?—I frantically got the kids ready, dropped Zoë off at toddler school, passed Stella into the hands of my sister, and wondered what I had forgotten to pack. (The whole while looking like Quasimodo.)

Maybe I forgot to pack something, but it doesn’t matter now. The sky is the pale blue of a wintery late afternoon. Outside my window are tall Aspen trees, white bark peeling. Curling like a hundred ancient scrolls.

There is an energy here at Faith’s Lodge that I’ve never felt before. It’s as if all of the families who have stayed in these rooms, stood on these balconies, and walked these trails have left a little bit of themselves here. As if they’ve left a little bit of the love they have for their children.

So now I feel myself take a deep breath, loosen my hold, uncoil. A space opens in my head, a clearing.

mother words writing retreat

I am so excited about this! The first Mother Words Writing Retreat!

Join me for a weekend retreat for mother-writers. We’ll write, share our writing, discuss challenges with craft, and have time to connect with other mother writers in the luxury and quiet of Faith’s Lodge. (There will also be plenty of time for writing in front of a fireplace and exploring the outdoors on skis or snow shoes.) Group meetings and individual conferences will help support you as you delve more deeply into your writing and learn to take risks on the page. Come immerse yourself in the writing life with other mothers who write.

When: 4 p.m. on Friday, February 26 – 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 28

Where: Faith’s Lodge, Wisconsin

Faith’s Lodge is located on 80 picturesque acres in Northwestern Wisconsin near the town of Webster, less than a two-hour drive from the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, less than one hour from Duluth/Superior and about four hours from Madison. The mission of Faith’s Lodge is to provide a place where parents and families facing the serious illness or loss of a child can retreat to reflect on the past, renew strength for the present, and build hope for the future.

But you need not have experienced the loss of a child to attend the retreat. This retreat is for all mother writers. (But proceeds from the Mother Words Writing Retreat will benefit the children and families served by Faith’s Lodge.)

Cost: $300 -500 (sliding scale) – includes lodging, food and beverages, and writing instruction

The Lodge has eight guest suites. Each suite features a private bath, fireplace, balcony/patio, flat screen TV, DVD player, small fridge, and coffee maker. Participants will be sharing rooms, but everyone will have their own bed.

To register: Contact Evelyn Nyberg at ENyberg@FaithsLodge.org or 715-866-8200.

Please contact me with questions about the Mother Words Retreat.

To learn more about Faith’s Lodge, visit http://www.faithslodge.org/.