Bridging: A One-Day Writing Retreat

Important Note:

The Hedgebrook Retreat is currently at capacity and registration is now closed.

Hedgebrook and the SMC MFA in Creative Writing program at Saint Mary's College are collaborating to offer a one-day writing retreat for woman-identified, non-binary and genderqueer writers.

Date: Saturday, June 9, 2018

Time: 9:00 am - 9:00 pm 
Retreat Schedule

Location:
Saint Mary's College of California
1928 Saint Mary's Road
Moraga, CA 94575

Keynote Speaker

Carolina De Robertis, a writer of Uruguayan origins, is the author of the novels The Gods of Tango, Perla, and the international bestseller The Invisible Mountain. Her books have been translated into seventeen languages, and have been named Best Books of the Year in venues including the San Francisco Chronicle, O, The Oprah Magazine, BookList, and NBC. She is the recipient of a Stonewall Book Award, Italy’s Rhegium Julii Prize, and a 2012 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, among other honors. She is also an award-winning translator of Latin American and Spanish literature, and editor of the anthology Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times, which features essays by leading thinkers and writers in response to the shifting political atmosphere in the U.S. In 2017, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts named De Robertis on its 100 List of “people, organizations, and movements that are shaping the future of culture.” She teaches fiction and literary translation at San Francisco State University, and lives in Oakland, California, with her wife and two children. She is currently at work on her fourth novel, The Burning Edge of the World. www.carolinaderobertis.com

Workshops

Macro Micro Memoir: Using Both Structure and Specifics to Shape your Nonfiction 

Christine O’Brien grew up in Manhattan and Beverly Hills and earned a BA in English at UC Berkeley. She worked in television for many years as a production assistant and segment producer for ABC-TV and NBC Productions and in the film industry as an assistant to producer Alex Ponti and director Mel Damski. Her screenplay, The Maccabees, was optioned by Dan Blatt Productions. In 2012 she received a double MFA from Saint Mary’s College of California, where she was awarded the Agnes Butler Scholarship for Literary Excellence. Her essays and short stories have appeared in The Seneca Review and The Slush Pile Magazine. Her essay “Cul de Sac” received an honorable mention in Glimmer Train’s 2014 Short Story Award for New Writers. She is currently an associate adjunct professor of English at Saint Mary’s and lives in Walnut Creek. Her memoir, CRAVE, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in the fall.
 

Working Art:  Blending the Roles of Artist/Writer and Business Owner/Publisher

La Rhonda Crosby-Johnson is a contributor to the award-winning Life Spices From Seasoned Sistahs anthology series and has also published work in Go, Tell Michelle:  African American Women Write To The New First Lady, Sassy, Savvy and Bold After 50, The Beauty of Darkness (poetry) and Jubilee’s Journey an ebook, serial novel.  La Rhonda is honored to also be a part of the anthology All The Women In My Family Sing edited by Deborah Santana. La Rhonda is co-founder of Ideate Publishing, LLC.  She and co-owner and editor, Tira Mc Donald, published Ideate’s debut project, an anthology of short stories by women writers titled Where’s My Tiara? in the fall of 2017.  She is currently putting the finishing touches on her first novel, Unveiled, scheduled for release in late 2018.  www.Ideatepublishing.com

Writing Ourselves Wild: Nature Writing for Wayward Women

MK Chavez, an Oakland-based Latinx writer, is the author of several chapbooks including Mothermorphosis. Dear Animal, (Nomadic Press) received the 2017 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Chavez is co-founder/curator of the reading series Lyrics & Dirges and co-director of the Berkeley Poetry Festival. She is a fellow with CantoMundo and a writer in residence at Alley Cat Books. Chavez’s poem The New Whitehouse, Finding Myself in The Ruins, was selected by Eileen Myles for the Cosmonauts Avenue 2017 Poetry Award.

Finding Fellowship: Making a Literary Life 

Vanessa Hua is the author of Deceit and Other Possibilities, winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature and a finalist for the California Book Award, and the forthcoming A River of Stars (Ballantine, August 2018). A columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, she has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, and ZYZZYVA, among others, and has filed stories from China, Burma, South Korea, and elsewhere. She received a Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, a Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing, Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice coverage, as well as honors from the Society of Professional Journalists and Asian American Journalists’ Association. She teaches at the San Francisco Writers' Grotto. www.vanessahua.com

Cost*

Attendee Early Bird until April 25 - $120
Attendee after April 25 - $150
Attendee with overnight accommodations** Early Bird until April 25 - $180
Attendee with overnight accommodations** after April 25 to May 2 - $210

Limited partial scholarships available. Email Joanne Furio for an application.   
Special accommodations available. Email Joanne Furio.

* Refunds are not available. Proceeds will benefit Hedgebrook and the Hedgebrook Scholarship at St. Mary's. 
**Single room, shared bath; 15 available 

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 Carolina De Robertis, author of the novels The Gods of Tango, Perla, and the international bestseller The Invisible Mountain. and Hedgebrook alumna
• Your choice of two out of four afternoon workshops 

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