INSPIRATION

This year’s retreat is structured in a way to open you up, to leave behind the age-old rules and regulations on what good writing is and isn't and break into open fields of your own sensibility and evoke those vignettes of thought and emotion that reflect your inner landscapes-- create new rules that are measured by your sincerity, your compassion, your loves and sadness’s. Don't go for the silly textbook dance where you mimic Charlie Chaplin's walk and mannerisms-- instead, be your own, sing your own, cry and dance your own stories and lyrics--this will be the crux of our craft lessons, to trust yourself enough to open up and welcome in the listener to hear your story, witness your journey. 

And who is the greatest Opener of all? The feminine instinct, Mother Earth, She who births life with her fingers, lips, sight, scent, touch, every aspect of Her Being pulsates with life-giving energy and that is what the poet does, the writer does, with every word and sound we round the male edges to lure from inside ourselves our feminine nature to create and open and spread and be vulnerable and evolve.... yes, evolve our beings to nourish not negate, to serve not turn our backs, to feed not hoard, to shelter not exclude, to love not betray....

That's what this writing retreat will be, balancing on the fulcrum of our confidence to bloom ourselves in every fertile word....

— Jimmy Santiago Baca