The information below is for our last retreat.

Please check back in December for the 2012 retreat dates.

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Writing Our Way Through Loss: A Grief Writing and Healing Retreat
Saturday, October 15th, 2011

Sonoma County: Forestville, California

Have you experienced a meaningful loss in your life? Are you searching for a way to find words to express your grief and also to navigate the healing process? Then please join workshop facilitators Kaye Cleave and Chris DeLorenzo for a day long writing retreat from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, titled, "Writing Our Way Through Loss: A Grief Writing and Healing Retreat."

The writing sessions will be facilitated in the Amherst Writers and Artists method (AWA) founded by Pat Schneider, which focuses on spontaneous writing prompts, voluntary reading, and positive feedback only. This isn't a therapy group, rather, it utilizes the AWA method as a healing art, a way of shaping meaning around our grief. Everyone is free to share his or her writing, or decline to read. We're also free to write about other subjects, but the writing prompts and handouts will each address grief and healing in some way.

During the retreat, we'll explore our ideas, thoughts, and stories generated by loss and surviving those we have loved. We'll also address the various ways we can approach the healing process and acknowledge the spectrum of experiences that represent grief and healing.

We're collaborating with Sharon Smith for this retreat. Since 2009, Sharon has collaborated on local writing retreats with Laguna Writers at her home in Forestville, California. Sharon and her husband David call this place Birdland, because of the wonderful variety of birds on their property. This beautiful spot is serene, spacious and comfortable: perfect for a writing retreat.

This retreat will have the same format as previous Birdland retreats: we'll write all morning, take several short breaks, and one longer break at lunchtime. The food theme will be Gourmet Comfort Food.  After lunch, we’ll write again all afternoon, enjoy a homemade dessert, and end the day with an evening toast and some light, savory snacks.

The Forestville Retreats are offered on a sliding scale of $150-$200. We encourage you to pay what you can afford to pay. The fee for the retreat includes the all-day workshop, as well as the morning treat, snacks, lunch, dessert, and all beverages.

If you are interested, please make a non-refundable $75 deposit to hold your place. You may do this by arranging to send Chris a check; you can also sign up on the "Fees and Deposits" page, using the Paypal drop-down menu. The balance is due on the day of the retreat.

To contact Sharon about accommodations or restaurants in the area, write her directly at SavoringSF@aol.com or call 415-378-8005.

To contact Chris, click the "Contact" tab to your left, or call Laguna Writers at 415-206-9771.

To contact Kaye, and to read her bio, and to see a short film by Kaye, please see below.

Kaye Cleave                            kcleave60@gmail.com                           510-418-1082   

Kaye Cleave began her career as a teacher, first in Australia, and then in England. She earned an MFA in writing from the University of San Francisco (2002), and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Adelaide, Australia (2006). From 2008–2010, she was a research scholar with the Graduate Theological Union at UC Berkeley. Her thesis involved interviewing bereaved mothers to determine if meditation helped them to grieve. She is very interested in the subject, being a mother who lost her only child.

She has travelled extensively and worked in various countries as a waitress, a taxi–driver, a professional public speaker, a counsellor, a grape-picker on a kibbutz, a sales-woman in Germany, and croupier in London. Kaye is now a life coach and an AWA writing workshop facilitator in the Bay Area; she completed the AWA Training Program in 2009. Her first book, Once More with Feeling (How to Manage your Emotions in the Workplace) was published in 1996. She is currently at work on a memoir, Catherine and the Buddha.

To see Kaye's short film, "A Tribute to Catherine," please click here.

Accommodations in the Area

The Sonoma Orchid Inn

The Radford Inn

The Sebastopol Inn

And for a cool day spa, see Osmosis

To learn more about my international retreats, click on the International Writing Retreats link in the column on your left.