For writers out there who've never been to a writer's retreat, I highly recommend trying it and I highly recommend University of Minnesota's Split Rock Arts Program. I went about three years ago. It was a one-week retreat in Duluth, Minnesota in the summertime. It wasn't a snooty writers' workshop, although there are many of those. It was practical for beginners as well as published writers.
The thing that blew me away was the talent in my group. I learned a lot from all of them.
It was hard work but fun and I met so many interesting people. My roomie, we stayed in the dorms, is still one of my good friends. She is a filmmaker and writes screenplays. I also keep in touch with another, who is just about to have her first book published.
Shay Youngblood was our leader. We wrote to music. Some of the music that we listened to in the workshop, I still listen to today. Shay's written several books including "Soul Kiss" and "Black Girl in Paris." I've also seen some of her work in O magazine. She inspired me to take on a writer's life.
Here's a preview of some of the classes they're offering this summer. I believe the cost is about $600.
June 26-July 2
The Short-Short Story
Kim Addonizio
Fabric Collage and the Stitched Mark
Ilze Aviks
Landscape and Memory: A Workshop in Poetry and Prose
Judith Barrington
Stretching: A Drawing Workshop
Sally Brown and Sally Nystrom
Creating a Dream: Illustrating Children's Picture Books
Ilse Plume
Navajo Weaving
Marilou Schultz
Woodcut Printing: East Meets West
Keiji Shinohara
Knitwear: Exploring Color and Design
Rebekah Younger
Interpreting the Landscape: A Drawing and Painting Retreat at the Cloquet Forestry Center
Christine Baeumler
July 3-9
All I Want To Do Is Paint: A Retreat at the Cloquet Forestry Center
David Feinberg
July 5-9
SPLIT ROCK SHORT: Writing Toward a Just World
Anya Achtenberg
SPLIT ROCK SHORT: Designing Commissioned Textiles
Ilze Aviks
SPLIT ROCK SHORT: Fiber Arts Brainstorm: Ideas and Experiments
Susan Brandeis
SPLIT ROCK SHORT: Photographing Urban Communities
Wing Young Huie
SPLIT ROCK SHORT: The Fiction Writer's Fingerprint
Sheila O'Connor
SPLIT ROCK SHORT: The Expanded Hand: Introduction to Digital Drawing
Scott Stulen
July 10-16
Creating Your Future
Gerald Allan
The Essence of Place: A Watercolor Workshop
James Boyd-Brent
The Complex Cloth
Jane Dunnewold
Intimate Terrain: The Art of Knotting
Ed Bing Lee
Telling True Stories: The Art of the Personal Essay
Scott Russell Sanders
The Alphabetized World: A Poetry Workshop
Emily Warn
Drawing for the Truly Terrified: A Retreat at the Cloquet Forestry Center
Sally Brown and Sally Nystrom
Between Grass and Sky: A Nonfiction Writing Retreat at the Cloquet Forestry Center
Linda Hasselstrom
July 17-23
Art and Design From Nature: A Screenprinting Workshop
James Boyd-Brent
Fashion Design: Function, Form, and Fit
Anna Carlson
Wool Work: Surface Design and Techniques
Carol LeBaron
The Secret River: Mentoring and the Practice of Poetry
Jim Moore
The Third Eye: Painting in a New Century
Cristi Rinklin
Writing the Travel Memoir: Spirit, Place, and Change
Catherine Watson
Writing in New Ways: A Fiction Workshop
Shay Youngblood
The Five Elements: A Mixed-Media Drawing Retreat at the Cloquet Forestry Center
Emily DuBois
Reinventing Reality: A Fiction Writing Retreat at the Cloquet Forestry Center
Sheila O'Connor
July 24-30
Writing the Book-Length Literary Memoir
Paulette Bates Alden
The Anti-Masterpiece: An Alternative Approach to Artists' Books
Julie Chen
Warp and Fabric Painting for Weavers
Emily DuBois
Beneath the Surface: Fabric and Fiber as Expressive Media
Allie Kay
Chinese Brush Painting and Calligraphy
Lampo Leong
Shaping the Page:Playing With Poetic Forms
Joyce Sutphen
July 31-August 6
Transformations and Translations: Surface Design for Art Quilts
Elizabeth Busch
Watercolor
Cheng-Khee Chee
The Geometry of Hand Knitting
Katharine Cobey
Writing as Collage
Lance Larsen
Literary Journalism: Writing Portraits of People and Place
Sara Mansfield Taber
Digital Textile Design
Hitoshi Ujiie
The Recollected Landscape: Painting From Observation and Memory
Dion Zwirner
