Bridging: A One-Day Writing Retreat

Hedgebrook and SMC MFA in Creative Writing are collaborating to present a one-day writing retreat for women, trans women, genderqueer women, and non-binary people.

Keynote speaker:

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of seven novels and three short story collections. Her most recent novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves was short listed for the Man Booker Prize, winner of the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award and The California Book Award for Fiction. The Jane Austen Book Club spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and was a New York Times Notable Book. Fowler’s previous novel, Sister Noon, was a finalist for the 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Her debut novel, Sarah Canary, was a New York Times Notable Book, as was her second novel, The Sweetheart Season. In addition, Sarah Canary won the Commonwealth medal for best first novel by a Californian, and was listed for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize as well as the Bay Area Book Reviewers Prize. Fowler’s short story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Award in 1999, and her collection What I Didn’t See won the World Fantasy Award in 2011. Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children and seven grandchildren, live in Santa Cruz, California. She is the co-founder of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and has served as president of the Clarion Foundation (also known as Clarion San Diego).

Workshops

From Artist Statement to Press Kit: A Po-Biz* Workshop

Raina J. León has been published in numerous journals as a writer of poetry, fiction and nonfiction.  She is a Cave Canem graduate fellow (2006), CantoMundo fellow, Macondo fellow, and member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective,   She is the author of three collections of poetry, Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, and sombra: (dis)locate (2016) and the chapbook, profeta without refuge (2016).  She has received fellowships and residencies with the Montana Artists Refuge, the Macdowell Colony, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Annamaghkerrig, Ireland and Ragdale.  She also is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online quarterly, international journal devoted to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts.  She is an associate professor of education at Saint Mary’s College of California.  www.rainaleon.com

Story Development: Plot, Character and 7 Steps to Authentic Storytelling

Angie Powers has an M.F.A. in English and Creative Writing from Mills College, where she won the Amanda Davis Thesis Award for her novel, The Blessed. She also has a Certificate in Screenwriting from the Professional Programs at UCLA. She is the co-director and co-writer of the short Little Mutinies (distributed by Frameline and an official selection of the Palm Springs International Short Fest) andwas a quarter-finalist for the Nicholl Fellowship and at Blue Cat Screenplay Competition for the full-length screenplay of Little Mutinies. She is currently in development on a feature-length comedy Lost in the Middle.  She is a teacher and cofounder at bookwritingworld.com.  Angiepowers.com

Flash Nonfiction: Sharpening Your Story for the Short and Long Haul

Jill Kolongowski is the author of Life Lessons Harry Potter Taught Me, forthcoming from Ulysses Press. She is also the managing editor at YesYes Books. Her essays have won Sundog Lit’s First Annual Contest series and the Diana Woods Memorial Prize in Creative Nonfiction at Lunch Ticket magazine. Other essays are published in Profane, Sweet: A Literary Confection, Forklift, Ohio, Southern Indiana Review, Fugue, and elsewhere. Jill was born in Michigan, but now lives near San Francisco, where she teaches writing, hikes, and watches Chopped marathons.

Applying for Fellowships and Residencies: Writing Personal Statements and Project Proposals

Rashaan Alexis Meneses has received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, The International Retreat for Writers at Hawthornden Castle, UK, and the Jacob K. Javits Program. Her fiction and non-fiction is published in various journals and anthologies, including Kartika Review, Puerto Del Sol, New Letters, BorderSenses, Kurungabaa, The Coachella Review, Pembroke Magazine, Doveglion Press, and the anthology Growing Up Filipino II: More Stories for Young Adults. You can find her at rashaanalexismeneses.com

Cost

$115 until May 6
$130 after May 6
Limited partial scholarships available. Email Joanne Furio for an application.
Special accommodations available. Email Joanne Furio.

Cost includes:

• Food (three meals, happy hour, and evening cake and coffee)
  Vegan and gluten-free options available
• Networking opportunities with Bay Area women writers’ groups
• An evening keynote by Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Sister Noon and Black Glass and Hedgebrook alumna
• Your choice of one of four afternoon workshops

Funds raised from the retreat benefit both programs and the newly established Hedgebrook scholarship for a St. Mary’s MFA student.

ONLINE PAYMENT AND REGISTRATION

If you have questions please email Joanne Furio or Amy Wheeler.