Writing about the workshops

This summer, on a little island off the Maine coast, Vinalhaven, I dedicated my writing time to writing about workshops.

In 2006, I attended the Chilmark Writing Workshop on Martha’s Vineyard, where we lived. What I observed during the first week was a complete shock to my senses. I was a grown woman, raised on the Hill of Howth with horses and cows and tough men who demanded tough attitudes and we kids delivered. And I had arrived in a compassionate and creative environment, one I didn’t recognise.

On the first day of the four-day workshop the facilitator, the brilliant Nancy Aronie, told a story about her earliest writing group experience and how the women from Hartford, Connecticut, critiqued each other. It was brutal. She cried when she got to the part about how they did a hatchet job on her piece. It was decades later, but still, the trauma of it resided.

I’d never seen a woman in her late 60’s cry. I had been trained not to cry in the school of hard knocks that was Howth Riding Stables.

I wanted to run.

Never had I felt more vulnerable.

But by the end of the four-day workshop writers revealed their stories, heartbreak, and joys - life story in all its messiness, fragments, and wholeness - and I wanted more.

I wanted to stay, to listen to these brave writers tell their stories, I wanted to write more, to read more, and to hang with these brilliant people, people I now considered friends, in the writing workshop space, forever and ever, Amen.

And I've been a part of, or running/facilitating writing workshops ever since.

We welcome new or experienced writers to our weekly workshops, we mix craft development with writing prompts and help you get where you want to go with your creative life, and we do it together.

Laraobrienbooks@gmail.com for Howth writing workshop information.

Retreat in Howth October 28th-31st including Hooks & Reels evening of story and song.

AND this beautiful offering that is going to be so magical.

A full week retreat in the mountains of Cadiz, Spain for a little sunshine, writing and yoga.