writing for life / anne beaufort / services

Recent Workshops

After Sixty: Getting to the Soul of the Matter

The poet Mary Oliver asks: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" For those of us over 60 this question has special poignancy. We will spend a week together deepening and clarifying the meanings and possibilities for this time of our lives. The seminar is designed to elicit both a deepening of understanding of one's individual calling and needs, of "soul work", as well as possible practical actions that might follow the workshop such as following up on interests in peace and justice work, changing habits to lead to greater mental and physical health, steps to improve significant relationships, and planning for older-age needs. We will have time to use the beauty and quiet of Ghost Ranch for personal reflection. Participants should be between 56-106 and be open to new experiences and new points of view.

Instructor(s):

Anne Beaufort is a professor in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at University of Washington Tacoma. Anne has led numerous workshops on writing and art to reach the soul and creative nonfiction writing with university students, hospital chaplains and Quaker groups. She has published in weekly newspapers, The Denver Post Sunday Magazine, and Tahoma West. She is also completing a certificate in spiritual direction at Seattle University's School of Theology.

Joyce Victor is a psychotherapist and group facilitator who has co-led two week-long workshops at Quaker retreats on "Changing Gears at 60, What's Next?" A volunteer with the Alternatives to Violence Project in the prisons, and with the Friends Committee on National Legislation, she also heads a small educational non-profit in rural Orissa, India. She is married, the mother of 3 grown sons, and has an active yoga and Zumba (dance) practice.

June 25 - July 1, 2012 at Ghost Ranch - Abiquiu, New Mexico

Additional course information at: www.ghostranch.org

Previous Workshops

Creative Nonfiction Writer's Workshop

For those who write editorials, op-ed pieces, autobiographical stories, feature articles, literary essays and other forms of creative nonfiction, this workshop will help you to hone your craft. We will study models and practice specific narrative and literary techniques in the mornings. In the afternoons, we will read and discuss each other's works-in-progress. Each participant will have the opportunity for feedback on one writing project (maximum 12 pages double-spaced, typed).

June 13-15 2011 at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology (on the Oregon coast)

Additional course information at: www.sitkacenter.com

Nurturing Gifts of Spirit through Art and Writing

"We have to fashion our own desert where we can withdraw every day, shake off our compulsions, and dwell in the gently healing presence of God. ...The concrete shape of the discipline of solitude will be different for each person."
- Henry Nouen

Participants will have an opportunity to reflect through writing and art on where their souls' journeys are taking them right now. They will do this privately through a variety of journaling and art techniques and communally in small group sharing of their work. Ways to write and use simple art-making to get beyond conscious mind, to deeper levels of knowing (or Light) will be presented, and in small group sharing, participants will also deepen their understanding of these tools for spiritual practice--with Self, and with colleagues and clients in work settings.

April 7-10 2011 at Quaker Hill Conference Center, Richmond, IN

Additional course information at: Quakers in Pastoral Care & Counseling

Coaching

You have a writing task at hand that seems overwhelming:

a college application essay?
a report for your company?
a thesis or dissertation in the humanities or social sciences?
a non-fiction book project?
an information campaign for an important cause?

Through one-hour coaching sessions, you will be guided and supported in managing the task, in bypassing writer’s block, in solving the particular problems the task presents you. And besides getting the task underway and completed, you’ll gain skills you can apply to the next writing project, and the next.

Coaching sessions can take place face-to-face in Seattle, by email, or phone, or on-line chat.

Fees: $30 - $60 per hour for individual or small group work (sliding scale).

Consulting

Your for-profit or non-profit organization, your community group, your professional group needs to develop a communications strategy to:

disseminate information widely, inexpensively

untangle miscommunications or communications blocks

build community

create good-will

solve a business problem.

Through two-hour consulting sessions, we identify communications needs, obstacles, and strategize the best ways to communicate effectively. The problem-solving process will enable your team or group to move forward and to develop communications expertise.

Fees: $200 per two-hour session plus travel expenses. Consulting by phone also available.

Planned Workshops

Writing for Health - A Weekend Retreat

Are you wanting to write your life experiences but feel unable to start?
Maybe you are a veteran journal-keeper looking for ways to deepen your writing practice?
Or do expressive arts arouse your curiosity?

In this weekend retreat, we'll have the opportunity to immerse ourselves in creative self-exploration through writing and mixed media play. Expressive activities will be simple (i.e. no skill is needed) and yet with enough structure to enable a meaningful level of remembering, reflecting, and shaping the meaning of your experiences. We will also use gentle stretching, meditation, and principles of narrative and cognitive behavior therapies to examine our lives in a safe, nurturing environment.

Medical studies have shown health benefits from writing, and writing and visual arts have been used in spiritual practices and psychotherapy as well. This weekend experience will guide you in exploring these ways of inviting health and wholeness in your life.

For dates, locations, and fees, send an email inquiry to: beaufort@u.washington.edu.

Writing as Spiritual Practice - A One-Day Workshop

Are you stuck in your journaling practice? Do you sense that your “morning pages” practice, or freewriting feels a bit stale?
Have you yearned to be a journaler, to get your life on paper, but feel intimidated by the prospect?
Are you seeking a way to deepen your inner life through writing?

In this one-day retreat, we’ll explore the ways of tapping into right-brain abilities, the untapped resources of our unconscious, and the myriad sources for exploring through writing. We’ll also experience writing out of silence, writing to our writing critics, and writing to visual and musical stimuli. Appropriate for novices, veterans, and all of us in between.

For dates, locations, and fees, send an email inquiry to: beaufort@u.washington.edu.