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Summer Intensive Writing Workshops in Santa Fe

The Language of Your Life
Morning Intensive meets July 19 - 23, 10 a.m. to Noon

Evening Intensive meets August 9 - 13, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Second St. Studios, Santa Fe, New Mexico


Ignite your creative life, find your voice as a writer, create fresh material... even get started on a book project.

We will meet each day at a small writing studio in Santa Fe to write together and critique each other's work (stories offered for critique may be written earlier or generated during this intensive). This supportive and inspiring group is appropriate for writers interested in working  on memoir or fiction--but we'll focus on generating narratives from our own lives. 

Class is suitable for writers at all levels--limited to 10, so please register early.

Ariel Gore has taught writing workshops in Portland, Oregon for ten years and lead intensives and writing retreats in Oaxaca, Mexico, Mount Shasta, California, and elsewhere. She is the founding editor of Hip Mama and the author of seven books including Atlas of the Human Heart, The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show, How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead, and Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness.

* The writing studio is located at The Second Street Studios -- 1807 Second St., #32. If you are coming from out of town, note that the studio is walking distance (about a half mile) from Santa Fe's International Hostel on Cerrillos Rd. (http://hostelsantafe.com)

$200 ($50 deposit is nonrefundable. Remaining $150 is due at the first meeting.)

Sign up for the July morning intensive:

Sign up for the August evening intensive:

The Counselor & Di Prima

New Blog at Psychology Today

Mountain Highways

We finally left our little house in Portland later-than-we-planned on Monday morning, hitched our little blue trailer to the back of the car and headed out. ‘Course we lost the trailer on Division. Max had just stopped crying about moving away from everything and everyone when there was a terrible sound behind us and he cried, “What’s happening to the car?”

So there we were, pulled over on the side of the road not a mile from the home we left, trying to flag down men in trucks. Finally we dragged the whole get-up back to U-haul and Dylan hitched it up, not because he’s the U-haul expert so much as “Woah, my dad used to have an old trailer like this.”

The 2,000-mile drive suddenly seemed pretty sketchy. “We could leave the trailer at Shannon’s,” I offered. But all our stuff was in the trailer and the guys at Sunset RV in Forest Grove had fixed all the lights and replaced the stove and gotten her road-ready, and Cody and Jennifer at the hardware store on Division had helped us pick out all the right paints, and Angie had helped us paint it, and Vincent the tailor on Milwaukie had made the sweet red slip covers. It wasn’t just a trailer—it was our project and it was our home now—we would take it to California and beyond!

Maria started out driving slow, but pretty soon we were on the 5 and passing trucks and Max was laughing again and we gowled over the passes and rolled out of Oregon and into the Shasta range. Snowy night camped out at the edge of a little town. I love the towns around Mount Shasta—full of old hippies and mountain people and folks dressed all in white studying advanced trigonometry while they wait for Jesus and the UFOs. California.

Another drive through the snow on Tuesday and we arrived in beautiful Plumas County and the sun broke through the clouds like some Hollywood ending. But we hoped it was more like a beginning. Invincible Spring.

I wasn’t even sure if the cabin we were staying in here was going to have plumbing, so we were happily surprised--not only an indoor toilet, but a hot shower, electricity—even snacks and beer. The Feather River College Writing Club and the Plumas Arts Council and the Quincy Writers Group know how to treat a visiting writer, all right.

The dogs ran around in country-heaven and Max fell in love with his new local-kid friends, Diego and Paloma. Hot springs soak down by the river and great writers at the workshops telling working-class stories about cleaning motel rooms and moving shingles, fiberglass shards in their arms.

We eat Portobello Mushroom burgers at Pangaea and figure, “well, if it doesn’t work out in Santa Fe, let’s move to Plumas County.”

But we’re still hoping for Santa Fe today and heading out with maps from the thrift store. Thinking about Nevada and whether to go through Utah or Arizona and getting worried now about what we’ll find in New Mexico. My mom’s torn apart the house we’re moving into, so it seems like we’ll be living in the trailer for a while yet. Good thing we didn’t leave it at Shannon’s, I guess.

Mountain highways.

Hip Mama

Hip Mama is up for an Utne Reader Alternative Press Award for... Best Writing!

New online writing class starts in May...

CLASS FULL - WAIT LIST ONLY!

This is best writing class I have ever taken! Almost painlessly you got us to write, write, write. And for me got at some new great material.

--Kitty Torres

Eight-week class runs May 14th – July 8th
ONLINE CLASS LIT STAR TRAINING
Taught by Ariel Gore

This class is the creative jolt we all need -- for writers wanting to work on either memoir or fiction -- we'll make time to write, create new material with weekly deadlines, and improve our craft with practice and critique. Appropriate for writers working on longer projects as well as those who want to write to assignments and produce short essays and stories. The pace is quick and energizing--you won't even have time to worry about creative blocks.

Class combines online discussion/critique, email, and telephone conference call. Class size is limited, so please sign up early. $275

Email arielgore at earthlink dot net with questions.

$90 deposit saves your spot - balance due when class starts

Portland Queer is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award!

$10 + postage

The finalists are...

LGBT Anthologies

* Gay American Autobiography: Writings from Whitman to Sedaris, edited by David Bergman (University of Wisconsin Press)
* Moral Panics, Sex Panics: Fear and the Fight Over Sexual Rights, edited by Gilbert Herdt (NYU Press)
* My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, edited by Michael Montlack (University of Wisconsin Press)
* Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City, edited by Ariel Gore (Lit Star Press)
* Smash the Church, Smash the State! The Early Years of Gay Liberation, edited by Tommi Avicolli Mecca (City Lights)

More categories here...