TrilliumCreek

Are You Ready?

Becoming the writer you always wanted to be is as easy as:

Decide on a workshop.

Tell us when you can start.

Register for the class!

 

 

Hard Work

Life is tons of discipline. Your first discipline is your vocabulary; then your grammar and your punctuation...Then, in your exuberance and bounding energy, you say you're going to add to that. Then you add rhyme and meter. And your delight is in that power.

— Robert Frost

 

Gritty word-by-word analysis in the serenity of the mountains? Sweat-inducing writing exercises in the calmness of the evergreens? Does that make sense?

It does if you have sixteen years of experience teaching nonfiction writing and a lifelong connection to the Oregon landscape.

I bring a newsroom intensity and a Northwest sensibility to the writing workshop experience, blending the seeming contradictions into what my students call an "inspiring mix" of hard work and rejuvenation.

Drawing on my experience as a journalism professor and editor, I created Trillium Creek Studios as a place where writers can leap unafraid into the interplay of destruction and creation that happens in shared creativity, trusting in a community of artists dedicated to reaching their full potential.

A writer in my own right, I understand the risks involved in putting creative work out for consideration. I also understand that taking part in a writing workshop can feel like even more of a risk. After all, the reader is right across the table from you! But what better environment to take that risk than the quiet serenity of a mountain retreat. Away from the demands of daily life, you can revel in having the time and space to explore your artistic expression, building a connection to your creativity and a community of supportive artists.

In designing each workshop, I draw on my years as a teacher, giving particular consideration to those writers who I know long for concrete feedback but are unused to putting their work out for immediate and intimate commentary. To make that exposure less overwhelming, each workshop exercise serves to build not only writing skills but a cohesive writing community, so that participants can safely give in to the heady mix of exhilaration and anxiety that is the creative process.
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I recognize that growth as a writer cannot happen without pushing limits, so I strive for authentic engagement with each participants' work, respecting each effort by providing personal feedback. At the same time, I am always aware that each person's limits are different, and I draw on my teaching experience to find the most productive path to walk with each student.

The core values of Trillium Creek Studio trace back to my graduate studies in the Literary Nonfiction Program at the University of Oregon where small groups of students commit to embracing creative challenges and intellectual rigor with the underlying agreement to work — hard.

Although Trillium Creek participants may not be pursuing a degree in writing, each group is treated as a fully formed writing community.

Serious engagement leads to creative transformation.