Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to announce its first annual generative writing retreat celebrating survival and healing on June 24th and 25th. This two-day retreat for sexual assault survivors at SAFTA’s Firefly Farms will be a safe space for creativity, generative writing exercises, discussions on ways to write trauma, advice on publishing, and more. Come join us in mutual support for a weekend of writing time for healing, safety, and comfort.
A weekend pass includes one-on-one and group instruction, writing supplies, food, drinks, and all on-site amenities for $75. Tents, sleeping bags, and other camping equipment are available to rent.
The event will be open to writers of all backgrounds and provide an opportunity to work with many talented, published fiction writers and poets from around the country, including Beth Couture, Heather Knox, Krista, Cox, and Jennie Frost.
Beth Couture is the author of Women Born with Fur (Jaded Ibis Press). She received her Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the Center Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. She currently lives in Philadelphia and is completing a Master’s degree in Social Work at Bryn Mawr College.
Krista Cox is a poet, paralegal, and single mother of two living in Northern Indiana. She edits for Stirring: A Literary Collection and Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and she runs Lit Literary Collective, a nonprofit that celebrates and elevates the literary arts in her local community. Her work has been or will be published in Columbia Journal, Rappahannock Review, and the Indianola Review, among other places in print and online.
Jennie Frost is a queer poet from Maryville, TN. She is currently the Writer-in-Residence and Literary Arts Director at Sundress Academy for the Arts where she works closely with visiting writers and a herd of sheep. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Border Crossing, Kudzu, Glass Mountain, Indicia, Stirring, and more. She is a dedicated member of the LGBTQ+ community and created the first Sexual Assault Prevention program at her alma mater, Tusculum College, where she studied Title IX closely and presented her Honors Thesis, “Sexual Assault Prevention: Research, Implementation, and Re-Creation in Small, Liberal Arts Colleges.”
Heather Knox is the author of the poetry collection Dowry Meat (Words Dance Publishing) and the forthcoming YA fiction series Vampire Wars (EPIC Escape). Her poetry has appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, [PANK], decomP magazinE, Word Riot, Thrush Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Heather currently teaches online for The Poetry Barn and Southern New Hampshire University and serves as Managing Editor for The Wardrobe.
We have two full scholarships available for the retreat as well as limited 20% scholarships for those with financial need. To apply for a scholarship, send a packet of no more than (8) pages of creative writing along with a brief statement on why you would like to attend this workshop to Erin Elizabeth Smith at erin@sundresspublications.com no later than April 30th, 2017. Scholarship recipients will be announced in May.
Space at this workshop is limited to 16 writers, so reserve your place today.
For more information, find Sundress Academy for the Arts on our website, Facebook, or Twitter.