by Laurie Wagner | Dec 5, 2022 | EVENTS
wild writing A personal invitation to both women and men to join a small group Wild Writing class, online or live in Alameda CA … That’s right… We’re going to Wild Write together. It’s a way to connect our wild voices + our wild lives, diving deep and writing together. Wild Writing is a timed writing process that we use to tell our stories to uncover the themes we want to write about. Using poetry to move us into our writing, we write three times in one session, writing as fast as we can, pen never leaving the page. By writing quickly we are able to push past our inner critic and our ego and all the ways we stay trapped in looking good. This gives us a chance to move into a less self-conscious, loose groove where, if we’re lucky we may stumble into the fertile imagination that lingers within us, conjuring up stories and memories that are waiting to be written. After we write we read our work aloud. We don’t critique, we just listen. We do this several times within the session. This technique, while very therapeutic, is also a wonderful way to jumpstart any good writing project because it helps you get to the chewy nougat of what you are trying to say. We keep the groups small, no more than 8 writers. It’s intimate and powerful. In addition to the classes I teach, and for the second year in a row, we are bringing on four very fine Wild Writing teachers for this class series, women who I had the pleasure to train in...
by Laurie Wagner | Sep 17, 2022 | EVENTS
workshop Wild Wonder Retreat with Laurie Wagner + Andrea Scher March 19-24, 2023 Wild Writing, photo magic + finding wonder in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico Join writing teacher Laurie Wagner + Andrea Scher, the author of Wonder Seeker, for a week of deep creativity, joyful exploring and curated wonder-filled experiences in colorful San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. We are so excited to show you the treasures we have discovered in San Miguel! It is such a rich place for creativity, personal transformation and deep connection to your spirit. We have been taking groups of women to this spectacular place for years – writing, walking, making art + sharing stories. If you’d like to feed your artist heart, this is the place to go! Our Schedule will look something like this. Each day will include Wild Writing, with photography + wonder-filled excursions sprinkled throughout the week WelcomeDay OneDay TwoDay ThreeDay Four Welcome Dinner: Sunday, March 19 Evening opening circle with a beautifully catered meal. A place for you to meet your new friends and get oriented to your experience in Mexico. We request that you arrive in time for this meal so you don’t miss the opening circle. Wild Writing + Tea Ceremony: Monday, March 20 Each day there will be time for our anchoring creative practice – Wild Writing. No previous writing experience required! This is a simple, free writing/personal essay practice, guided by Wild Writing teacher Laurie Wagner. Wonder Workshop + Natural Dyeing Workshop: Tuesday, March 21 We will start the day with a wonder lesson from Andrea and then go to our workshop on natural dye...
by 27 Powers Support | Jul 30, 2022 | EVENTS
workshop Wild Wonder Retreat with Laurie Wagner + Andrea Scher September 24-29, 2023 Wild Writing + finding wonder in Taos, New Mexico Join Wild Writing teacher Laurie Wagner, and Andrea Scher, the author of Wonder Seeker, for a week of deep creativity, joyful exploring, and curated wonder-filled experiences in Taos, New Mexico. Taos is a rich place for creativity, personal transformation and deep connection to your spirit. We will be writing, walking, making art and sharing stories. If you’d like to feed your artist heart, this is the place to go! It’s been a dream of ours to take our work to Taos, New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment. It’s a rugged and gorgeous country with big skies, sunrises, and sunsets that you won’t believe. The light is astounding in New Mexico. We’ll also be staying at the famed Mabel Dodge Luhan House, a gorgeous retreat center established in the 1920’s as a creative salon for artists and thinkers such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Willa Cather, Ansel Adams, Emma Goldman, and Alfred Stieglitz. The place has big history, each room is different and the food is out of this world. Here are all the details in one place: Dates:Sunday, September 24th – Friday, September 29th, 2023 Your investment:$3,100 (small, gorgeous private room)$3,300 (larger, equally gorgeous private room) Deposit:$500 (non-refundable deposit to secure your spot!) The price above includes: -Lodging for 5 nights at Mabel Dodge Luhan House -Breakfast and lunch each day -Two group dinners -Wild Writing, art-making, yoga + other creative lessons Space is limited to 19 lovely peeps. (Women-only please.) Nab your spot soon. This will sell out!...
by Laurie Wagner | Apr 18, 2022 | EVENTS
workshop Wild Writing Nepal with Laurie Wagner + Jeff Greenwald February 17-27, 2023 Wild Writing + finding wonder in Nepal Every story is a mosaic of moments. Our lives are filled with these moments – slices of time when a story comes alive. They can be captured effortlessly. All we need to do is take a moment to see what’s in front of us, and let it touch us. That’s how we move through the world creatively – that’s how we transform our lives into works of art. Friends, we invite you to join us in capturing the chaotic, crackling beauty of Nepal this coming February-March. This will be our first Nepal writing adventure post-Covid, as Nepal is again a safe and welcoming place to visit! During our 10-day exploration of Kathmandu and environs we will write intimate, 200-600 word sketches which encapsulate our experience amid the beauty and energy of this Himalayan realm. Nepal is a country of vivid colors and unforgettable faces; a place where the sacred and profane blend in an ever-changing mosaic. We’ll begin our mornings with meditation, led by our Nepal host James Hopkins, followed by two hours of “wild writing,” a loose and liberating writing technique. Afterwards we’ll explore the temples and alleyways of the Kathmandu Valley; meet with artists and spiritual leaders; shop for beads and buddhas in the amazing bazaars of the old city. We have also timed the trip to coincide with Losar, the Tibetan New Year, as celebrated at the sacred Boudha stupa. It’s going to be quite a journey. Please join us! Our Schedule will look something like...
by Laurie Wagner | May 10, 2021 | EVENTS
Art & Beauty Around the Fire with Laurie Wagner and Andrea Scher September 11 – September 12, 2021 (Alameda, CA) Workshop Sold Out! It has been an incredible year, but we made it, we’re moving to the other side of things and we want to celebrate with you in the only way we know how… …through making things with our hands, through Wild Writing, and through honest conversations that bring us closer to ourselves and to each other. This is the medicine of these wild times. This is how we want to engage in the new world, this is our new normal. We are beyond excited to invite you to an IN PERSON workshop this September 11th and 12th, 2021!!! Just typing those words makes our hearts leap in excitement. Like you, we have been missing the joy of being together in real life; The delight of clinking our glasses Writing together at the same table Making art in the sunshine Sitting around the firepit at night whispering stories Eating delicious food Making new friends Remembering that you belong Here are the details: When: Saturday, September 11th and Sunday, September 12th, 2021 Where: Laurie’s house in Alameda, CA Who: Only 15 lucky peeps! Register below! What: Part quilting bee, part family reunion with your favorite cousins, part gratitude ritual for being (well, mostly) on the other side. Art making, story spinning, connecting. Cost: $595 – This includes all day Saturday (plus a special Saturday evening Storybowl gathering around the firepit) and all day Sunday. Catered lunch is provided both days + all the coffee, tea + snacks your heart desires. Plus, 15 of the most...
by Laurie Wagner | Apr 15, 2019 | EVENTS
The Lyric Essay Join Laurie Wagner and Sonya Lea on Whidbey Island WA Thursday, September 5 – Sunday, September 8, 2019 Please join me and my very dear friend, Sonya Lea, for a beautiful, restorative, nature filled weekend of writing and storytelling on Whidbey Island, WA. During this long weekend retreat we’ll focus on the lyric essay, the beautiful wild child of personal essay meets poetry meets your playlist. Inside the lyric essay there’s room for mythology, reflection, repetition, multiple perspectives, sensory details, music, and mathematical formulas. The lyric form has room for all the vocabularies of your particular experience. Imagine telling the story of your first love through the wisdom of Tarot cards. Consider telling a tale about an injustice using only the dialogue of strangers. What if you wrote the story of loss through the letters of the alphabet? We will learn new ways around a sentence, and interrogate what we have to risk in writing this essay. How can we push past pretty writing to sense what we have at stake in this work? How can we think more critically about what our work asks of us? Where might the lyric form show us what we stand for, even marry our words with our activism? In our four days together we will embrace experimentation, foster individual perspective, and encourage the growth of your creativity through writing prompts, discussion and reading. We’ll explore braided, collage, elegy, manifesto, and more as we allow your essayist to emerge, in everything that you already are, and perhaps also in newer, more dangerous truths. Details We will be staying at a...
