Costa Rica Writing Retreat – The Adventure Begins

It’s day one of our 2017 writing retreat week, and I’m excited, nervous, eager to meet this year’s writers as I thread through the manic crowds of San Jose’s international airport. It seems everyone is shouting, the voices echoing the thrill I feel inside. I join the throngs of tour guides and drivers, each of us holding aloft a sign, jostling for space outside the terminal as the doors swing open to reveal the next batch of travelers. I’m early, as always, so there’s a long wait before my first writer emerges. She steps from the air conditioned, newly refurbished terminal, into the heat and noise of a tropical city and I LOVE her expression – surprise, turning swiftly to delight. Then, she sees me […]

2019-05-04T17:22:01-04:00November 28, 2017|Home Page, On Writing, Writing Retreats|
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Writing and Teaching Writing – Both Matter!

A few years ago, I was interviewing to find a new writing teacher for our arts camp. One applicant told me in the interview: It’s good that teaching positions exist because when you can’t make enough money in the arts, teaching is the next best thing. Wrong. If an artist views teaching as financial fallback, then I would question how they define what it means to be an artist. As A.L.Kennedy puts it in her excellent book on writing, being an artist may be HARD, but it’s also a privilege. Privileges carry responsibilities. And those include the responsibility to inspire. We inspire by writing, making art, acting… but by creating, we also open a dialogue. We speak to our readers and to our audiences, but […]

2019-05-04T17:23:14-04:00November 23, 2017|Home Page, On Writing, Uncategorized, Writing Retreats|
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Spooky Prompts for Writers

If you enjoy writing, and you also love Halloween, here are THIRTEEN writing prompts to get you in the mood for trick or treating! ONE: You take an elevator at the mall. The elevator goes down… and keeps on going. Where are you when the doors open? TWO: It’s a dark and rainy night. Someone hears a knock on their door. They open it – and find themself standing on the other side. THREE: Your character receives messages from a stranger who seems to know everything about them. The messages direct him or her to a disused factory at dusk. There, a dozen other people wait. All received the same message… FOUR: You take a cruise to a deserted island where strange things happen. On […]

2019-05-04T17:24:44-04:00October 23, 2017|Home Page, On Writing, Young Writers!|
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Beat the Blank Page: Inspiration for Writers!

This post is most definitely for the writers among you! Have you ever sat down at your desk and tried to write – only to find you have no ideas at all? Here are 6 ways to get you started on a new piece of fiction: Choose a novel off your shelf – preferably one you haven’t read. Open randomly and let your eyes land on a portion of a sentence that sounds vague. Write from there. Examples:           Hearing a noise behind him, he turned and… It was a house they had never noticed before… Alternately, choose the first line of a story and write from it, or choose the last line of a story, and write towards it. (When you are done, change […]

2019-04-30T20:59:36-04:00April 6, 2017|Home Page, On Writing, The Finding Place, Writing Retreats, Young Writers!|
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Writing Matters – a Newsletter for Writers

Several weeks ago, I started a newsletter for writers. The newsletter is a free service. It goes out every Friday by email and is packed full of prompts and writing tips. This blog is an excerpt from the very first newsletter. If you like what you see here, and you want to receive the newsletter every week in your mailbox, simply drop me a note: julieAT SIGNcentauriartscamp.com Today, I’d like to introduce you to the writer’s best friend: the Free Write. What’s this? It’s a way to beat the blank page, the blank screen – to help your words flow freely. Imagine that your passion was dance, not writing. Would you ever slip out of your winter gear and leap immediately onto the stage to […]

2019-05-04T17:26:48-04:00March 24, 2017|Home Page, On Writing, Writing Retreats, Young Writers!|
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Costa Rica Retreat – Days 6-8

Day 6… After breakfast by the pool to a cacophony of screeching parrots, we set ourselves a bizarre challenge this morning: use what we have learned this week to collaborate, in just an hour, on the plot outline for a novel! We explored different ways to generate ideas, warmed up with a 15 minute free write, then in less than an hour, we outlined a complete novel. Our inspiration was a simple question: what is essential for life? What would happen if one of those essentials was taken away? This morning, we also shared, critiqued and celebrated the character pieces we worked on yesterday – several participants were so inspired by these that they have already worked them into short stories! This afternoon, several group […]

2017-02-13T15:35:15-04:00February 13, 2017|Home Page, On Writing, Writing Retreats|
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Costa Rica Retreat – Days 4-5

Our lives have fallen into a wonderful pattern, here. We wake to a cacophony of rainforest noises in the morning, drink coffee and eat a breakfast that consists of produce either grown or made right here at Fina Luna Nueva: delicious breads, jams, kafir, kombucha, farm fresh eggs, chaya and yucca pancakes and platters of fresh fruits. We eat overlooking the forest on one side and the lovely pool on the other. We take our coffee with us up to the terrace, where we hold a 2 hour writing workshop each morning, trying not to be too distracted by the hummingbirds zipping between the flowers and the parrots screeching overhead. On Day 4, our writing workshop explored story and plot; we explored several ways to […]

2019-05-04T17:27:46-04:00February 9, 2017|Home Page, On Writing, Writing Retreats|
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Costa Rica Writing Retreat – Days 2/3

The retreat is now in full swing! We began yesterday with a tour of the spectacular bio dynamic farm at Finca Luna Nueva, seeing toucans, flocks of parrots and much more. Then we dove into the first writing workshop – a 2-hour session about inspiration: where to find it as a writer, and how to stay inspired. We have a fabulous group of talented writers here this year, and it’s a joy to see them grappling with ideas, and to hear them read work that they are justifiably proud of. Yesterday was the Superbowl, so in the late afternoon they all taxied into La Fortuna for dinner and to watch the game. Today’s workshop was all about mining our lives for stories – how do […]

2019-05-04T17:28:36-04:00February 7, 2017|On Writing, Writing Retreats|
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Costa Rica Writing Retreat – Day 1

One of my favourite activities each year is taking a group of writers from all over North America to an incredible eco lodge in the Costa Rica rain forest, where I lead writing workshops and discussions for seven magical days. There are few things more inspiring than the opportunity to help others find their voice as writers. I landed in San Jose yesterday, took a few hours to read the short stories and novel excerpts some of my writers had sent, relaxed at a hotel for the evening and returned to the airport at noon today to meet everyone’s flights. Half our group is American this year, half Canadian. All come looking for an adventure, and hoping to discover something new about themselves as writers, […]

2019-05-04T17:30:33-04:00February 5, 2017|Home Page, On Writing, Writing Retreats, Young Writers!|
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