Writing for Health and Healing Online Retreat

Writing for Health and Healing Online Retreat – Oct 3-4, 2020

by Dominican University of California – Low Res MFA in Creative Writing

Writing for Health and Healing Online Retreat – Oct 3-4 (free)
by Dominican University of California – Low Res MFA in Creative Writing

Please join us for a free virtual writing retreat to restore your energy and well-being.  The focus of the retreat is to explore the ways that writing can help us face today’s challenges and rejuvenate the spirit.  Our retreat opens on Saturday Oct 3 with a reading and craft talk by distinguished poet and neurologist Dr. Dawn McGuire and continues the next day with generative writing workshops led by Dominican faculty and special guests. Sunday afternoon we offer a panel discussion on audio storytelling from the creators of The Nocturnists.

We extend a special welcome to healthcare providers during this critical moment.  Registered nurses can apply to get 5 continuing education units (CEUs) for attending the retreat.  Registration required. This writing retreat is a service to the public and there is no charge for participating.  Follow the registration link below to sign up and select a writing workshop.  Zoom meeting links will be sent to all participants a few days before the retreat.

Retreat Schedule of Events

Saturday, October 3:

3:00-3:45pm PST: Welcome Meeting

4:00-6:00pm PST: Keynote: Dawn McGuire

Writing (Yourself) Well: Craft and the Neuroscience of Narrative

Description: Dawn McGuire, neurologist and author of The Aphasia Cafe (Indie Book Award, 2012) and American Dream with Exit Wound (Northern California Book Award finalist, 2018), will explore how we “write ourselves well” with works that hold fragments in place or build a narrative center from which we can move forward. The neurobiology of compelling narratives will be touched on. The talk will include examples of poems by Ellen Bass, Natalie Diaz, Christian Wiman and others, either dealing with illness themselves or with seriously-ill loved ones.

Sunday, October 4:

10:00-11:30am PST: Writing Workshops

You will have the option of requesting a workshop preference in the registration process.

Workshop 1: Narrative / Poetic Medicine with visiting faculty member David Watts

Workshop 2: Act Up: Enter the Tradition of Narrative Writing in Pandemic Times with Dominican Faculty member Thomas Burke

Workshop 3: Diagnosis and the Divine Detail in Poetry with Dominican faculty member Joan Baranow

Workshop 4: Ancestral Healing to the Future: On Genograms, Genealogy, and Poetics with special guests Norma Thomas & Raina J. Leon

Workshop 5: Dreaming Up Stories / Revising the Narrative with faculty member Marianne Rogoff

Workshop 6: Collective Healing through Writing with Dominican Faculty Perry Guevara

3:15-3:45pm PST: Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing Information Session (Optional)

4:00-6:00pm PST: Panel Discussion

Audio Storytelling with the Nocturnists

University of California - San Francisco physicians, Ashley McMullen and Emily Silverman, and producer Adelaide Papazoglou will share their work on The Nocturnists, a storytelling platform. Their work includes two new audio documentaries, “Black Voices in Healthcare” and “Stories from a Pandemic.” In this panel, they discuss the power of storytelling to heal, connect, and cultivate empathy across differences.

This retreat is sponsored by the Low Residency Creative Writing MFA Program at Dominican University of California. Our MFA program fosters a supportive community of talented writers who are encouraged to experiment across genres and with new forms of writing. In addition to Poetry, Fiction and Creative Nonfiction, Dominican offers an optional track in Narrative/Poetic Medicine, which allows students to embrace the special role that creative writing can play in the process of healing.  Applications are currently being accepted for January admission.  Contact Judy Halebsky at judy.halebsky@dominican.edu for more information.