2024 Writers retreat
june 28-30
2025 WRITERS RETREAT
JUNE 27-29
Greater Albuquerque Association
of REALTORS®️ Event Center
"In June of 2023, fresh and unleashed from America’s covid crisis, a room full of excited poets gathered for the Annual Jimmy Santiago Baca Writer’s Retreat, held at the Albuquerque Museum. Besides the expected daily workshops, we were surprised to receive sessions on ecstatic dancing, hip-hop verses, gardening, native ceremonial movements, and an opportunity to learn a Buddhist chant. In his words, we were invited to ‘loosen up the subconscious enough to allow the ego to step aside for the writer/poet to write’. And loosen up we did."
- Veronica C. Evans
INSPIRATION
This year’s retreat is structured in a way to open you up, to leave behind the age-old rules and regulations on what good writing is and isn't and break into open fields of your own sensibility and evoke those vignettes of thought and emotion that reflect your inner landscapes-- create new rules that are measured by your sincerity, your compassion, your loves and sadness’s. Don't go for the silly textbook dance where you mimic Charlie Chaplin's walk and mannerisms-- instead, be your own, sing your own, cry and dance your own stories and lyrics--this will be the crux of our craft lessons, to trust yourself enough to open up and welcome in the listener to hear your story, witness your journey.
And who is the greatest Opener of all? The feminine instinct, Mother Earth, She who births life with her fingers, lips, sight, scent, touch, every aspect of Her Being pulsates with life-giving energy and that is what the poet does, the writer does, with every word and sound we round the male edges to lure from inside ourselves our feminine nature to create and open and spread and be vulnerable and evolve.... yes, evolve our beings to nourish not negate, to serve not turn our backs, to feed not hoard, to shelter not exclude, to love not betray....
That's what this writing retreat will be, balancing on the fulcrum of our confidence to bloom ourselves in every fertile word....
— Jimmy Santiago Baca
Schedule
27
6pm - 9pm
6pm – 9pm
Beer & Wine w/
Jimmy Santiago Baca & Instructors
28
8:30am - 4pm
8:30am – 10am
Teacher’s Panel
10:30am – 12pm
Breakout Classes
12pm – 2pm
Lunch +
Independent Writing
2pm – 5pm
Instructors Lessons
29
2pm - 3pm
2pm – 3pm
JSB Opener
3pm – 5pm
Attendee Readings
Meet the Instructors
WHO IS THIS RETREAT FOR?
Don't think that because you're not a published poet/writer/screenwriter or novelist you can't join us––in fact, those with stories in their heads and desire in their hearts are the best ones to attend this workshop. You'll learn how to get those poems, that story, that memoir written. Guarantee it. You'll learn about structure, tone, metaphor, stream of consciousness, editing, and much, much more. We promise a memorable event for you, to make new friends for life, to become a better writer/poet, to express yourself in your own unique fashion.