Time to Write: A Gift to Yourself

A contemplative, mentored retreat from WriterSpace

Magic Time   April 19-22, 2012

Penuel Ridge Retreat Center, a contemplative retreat center in Ashland City, Tennessee, near Nashville

EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT $325*

Magic Time is time you give to yourself, as a writer. In a contemplative setting, you’ll find the treasured quiet hours that stoke your creative fire. With mentored support, you’ll find just the right mix of guidance, inspiration and tools to develop your craft and build the practices that carry into your writing life beyond the retreat.

Think of the Magic Time writers’ retreat as a gift. As writers living in a fast-paced world, sometimes it can be a challenge to slow down, reflect and contemplate the narratives that unfold in our beautiful minds. Many times, even though you’re fully committed to the writing life, the time to think and write gets pushed aside. Life crowds your writing time. The frenzied demands of life crowd the thinking and reflecting that pour into your art.

That can make re-entry into the writing life difficult. The Magic Time retreat gives you that portal to come back to the page – and to develop practices that return you to the page again and again.

It’s often been said – and this is true – if you want to be a writer, sit your butt in the chair and write. The Magic Time retreat gives you the time to do just that, and more. The retreat will give you ways to “get to the chair” with your mind open, inspired, courageous and insightful. It will give you a clear vision for your story, for the true north of the writing path.

The mentored portion of the program includes:

> Morning body-mind-spirit meditation and yoga to calm the mind and awaken your creativity

> Labyrinth walks that allow you to center yourself and create your vision.

> Readings to inspire you

> Lively discussions about craft with fellow writers

> Creative visualizations that help you imagine, see and be a writer with a true north vision.

> Craft talks from mentors Terry Price and Carolyn Flynn

> Tools for setting intentions that carry you back into your writing life

> A community of intentional writers to support you

Whether you are an experienced writer who has been working on a project or a new writer who is hoping to establish a writing routine – or somewhere in between – this retreat is for you.

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If you sign up by March 15*

Lodging and meals for three days offered at $120 – a super deal!

Gain momentum and vision coming out of the retreat by adding a one-on-one critique, $45

Only have a day? One day only retreat offered at $95!

*$365 after March 15

REGISTER NOW at terry@terryprice.net or carolyn@carolynflynn.com.

Terry Price is director emeritus of The Writer’s Loft at Middle Tennessee State and president of the Spalding MFA in Creative Writing Alumni Association. Terry Price does not believe in dormancy. Over the years, he’s kept moving whether it’s his vocation, his avocation, hobbies, or just on a lark. Life is meant for the living. He’s worked as an optician, a radio and television sports anchor and play-by-play broadcaster.  He went to law school and has practiced as an attorney during which time he also went through The Writer’s Loft creative writing program at Middle Tennessee State University and graduated with his MFA in Writing from Spalding University in Louisville.  He has published several short stories, one of which was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, became the program director of The Writer’s Loft and now is a Director Emeritus of, and a mentor with, the program.  Terry is currently revising his short story collection for publication and is writing his first novel set in Nashville, with the working title of An Angel’s Share.

He is an accomplished photographer, long distance cyclist, Appalachian Trail section hiker, and sailor and lives on a small farm in Springfield, Tennessee with his family and two dogs, two goats, a small herd of Longhorns and lots of squirrels.  Find out more at www.terryprice.net.

Carolyn Flynn, winner of the Renwick-Sumerwell and SouthWest Writers fiction prizes, as well as the Albuquerque the Magazine 2010 short fiction prize, has had literary short stories published in Ellipsis and The Crescent Review and featured in the German anthology Wilde Frauen. Her creative nonfiction piece “Pound of Flesh” appeared in The Tampa Review to great acclaim. She has been short-listed for the Tom Howard Prose Prize in creative nonfiction and the Danahy Prize in fiction. For the past ten years, she has been editor of SAGE magazine, published monthly in the Albuquerque Journal. She is an MFA candidate in fiction and creative nonfiction at Spalding University and the author of seven nonfiction books on body, mind and spirit topics. She is completing a novel, Searching for Persephone. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her 12-year-old twins. Find out more at carolynflynn.com.

“This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder,
when the affections glow again and valor is reborn,
when the shadows deepen magically along the edge of the forest
and we believe that, if we watch carefully,
at any moment, we may see the unicorn.”

Bernard DeVoto, “The Hour”