Nourish Yourself
Honour Your Voice
Write Your Stories.
Summer, a time of year with little or no structure . . . a free-floating time of musing, pondering and shifting. It’s also a perfect chance to take a “time out” to connect to oneself while being in the nurturing company of other writers.
This summer I am offering some unique ONE-AT-A-TIME POP-UP circles to keep you connected to a sustainable writing practice and a nourishing writing community. And this is an opportunity to see what a Writing Life circle is like before signing up for a four-week or six week circle.
Some writing circles are in person and one is on Zoom so you can enjoy the circle from wherever you are.
Fee: $60 for each 2-1/2 hour session (includes refreshments)
except for the Zoom circle which is $50
There are angel funds available so please let me know if a lower fee would be helpful.
Location: My home in Nanaimo (about 15 minutes from downtown)
The July 13th writing circle wherever you live, on Zoom.
Please Do: Check your calendar to see what dates you’re available. Let me know so I can save you a space. E: creativity@maryannmoore.ca
Confirm your space sending an e-transfer to creativity@maryannmoore.ca. If mailing a cheque, my mailing address is: Mary Ann Moore, 76 Colwell Road, Nanaimo, B.C. V9X 1E6
Maximum: 6 writers
Minimum: 3 writers
All that we are is story. From the moment
we are born to the time we continue on
our spirit journey, we are involved in the
creation of the story of our time here. It is
what we arrive with. It is all we leave behind.
Richard Wagamese
July 2023
Create a retreat for yourself for a morning in July whether on Zoom or in person in Nanaimo.
A Cabinet of Curiosities
Thursday, July 13, 2023, 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific Time on Zoom
The term “a cabinet of curiosities” goes back to Renaissance Europe, and probably earlier, when people had “wonder rooms” full of knick-knacks and collections of oddities from nature for study, inspiration and contemplation. We still collect curiosities on our walks, our travels and because we cherish objects we’ve kept since childhood. Each object has a story and each evokes or invokes a memory in us. Readings from poets and prose writers will inspire our writing about our own cabinets of curiosities. Lorna Crozier’s The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things will be one of our inspirations.
A Cabinet of Curiosities
Thursday, July 20, 2023, 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in person
The term “a cabinet of curiosities” goes back to Renaissance Europe, and probably earlier, when people had “wonder rooms” full of knick-knacks and collections of oddities from nature for study, inspiration and contemplation. We still collect curiosities on our walks, our travels and because we cherish objects we’ve kept since childhood. Each object has a story and each evokes or invokes a memory in us. Readings from poets and prose writers will inspire our writing about our own cabinets of curiosities. Lorna Crozier’s The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things will be one of our inspirations.
I have come to believe that we are given
certain stories to write: that regardless of
genre or length, these stories seek us out.
Betsy Warland, “Twenty Pages and a Razor Blade”
August 2023
Create a retreat for yourself for a morning or two in August at a country setting in Nanaimo.
Maps of the Possible
Wednesday, August 2, 2023, 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in person
“Writing makes a map,” writer Christina Baldwin said in her book Life’s Companion. “There is something about a journey that begs to have its passage marked.” That can be done in a journal as well as in various forms that include poetry, personal essays, short prose and genre-defying approaches you create yourself. You have something to say that only you can say; stories that seek you out. We’ll have a look at the various possibilities when it comes to your own writing from life.
We live on a coastal hill with a view west
onto a bay, a mountain, a rust-gold bridge,
and the sea beyond them.
Robert Hass, “To Be Accompanied
by Flute and Zither”
Desire Lines & A Memory Map
Tuesday, August 15, 2023, 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in person
From an imagined walk in a once familiar place, a memory map, we’ll move on to where you live now and then consider “desire lines,” which are the paths you create for yourself, straying from the one carved out for you. Desire is at the heart of creativity the late John O’Donohue said. “When we engage creatively . . . we enter into a kind of genesis foyer, where something that not yet is might begin to edge its way from silence into word, from the invisible into form.” (To Bless the Space Between Us)
What Happens in a Writing Life Circle
In the Writing Life Circle we write from our lives and create writing lives. We write for the love of it. I offer inspiring readings, poems and prompts as doorways to our own stories and “your own way of looking at things.” Much of our inspiration and creative stimulation comes from one another as well as from the work of other writers. There’s no critiquing and no previous writing experience is necessary. Responses to one another’s writing is meant to encourage and support.
While some of the writing may be considered “journaling,” it has value as acknowledging an event or an emotion and may offer some fresh insight. Lines from those journaling entries may make their way into future pieces of fiction, a personal essay or a poem. An important aspect of the circle is to claim the fullness of your own life, to write your story for yourself first before you consider the aspect of crafting it to share elsewhere.
We follow guidelines in the circle so as to create a safe container. I also offer a flower essence each week as Nature’s support for our safe container, the process of uncovering and the integration of what has been discovered.
Please be in touch with any questions you may have.