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Nonfiction writer Vicki Mayk and poet Dawn Leas (aka The Hammock Writer) will lead a weekend of writing and relaxation at the Laingdon Hotel, 8 Ocean Ave., Ocean Grove, N.J. The weekend includes generative workshops in poetry or prose (your choice), breakfasts and lunches and more.An early bird registration rate of $385 -- $65 off the full retreat registration (excluding room) -- is available until Sept. 5 (date extended). For details and to register, please go to the event page https://bit.ly/wordsinthesand2024
Nonfiction sessions will be led by Vicki Mayk, author of Growing up on the Gridiron, Football, Friendship, and the Tragic Life of Owen Thomas.
Poetry sessions will be led by Dawn Leas, author of two chapbooks (I Know When to Keep Quiet and A Person Worth Knowing), and one full-length collection (Take Something When You Go).
Words in the Sand 2024 Schedule
Friday, October 11, 2024
2:00 p.m. Check-in
The Inn’s official check-in time is 2-7 p.m. If your room is not ready, you’ll be able to park (street parking, there is no lot), and enjoy the Inn’s parlor or porch, head to the beach, or explore Ocean Grove.
3:00-5:00 p.m. Writing and or exploring time
Dinner on your own.
7:00 p.m. Opening reception
8:30 p.m. Optional group walk on the boardwalk
Saturday, October 12, 2024
8:00 a.m. Breakfast
Limited complimentary continental breakfast is available at Laingdon. Bagels provided by Vicki and Dawn.
10:00-11:45 a.m. Warming-Up
We’ll say goodbye to the real world (at least for a few days) and settle in to retreating by starting with a short journaling exercise. We’ll then move into a discussion of how choosing a certain word can influence a piece followed by a writing prompt where we will make abstract words more concrete by personifying them. We’ll end the session with a quick drawing exercise related to what we’ve written. (No drawing experience needed!)
12:30 p.m. Lunch (Jersey Shore Arts Center, Room 5, 66 S Main St, Ocean Grove)
1:30 - 3:30 p.m. Workshops: Participants will choose either prose (Vicki) or poetry (Dawn).
Yes, Chef: Writing About Food (Jersey Shore Arts Center, Room 5)
If we’ve learned anything from watching a recent popular television show, it’s that food (eating it and cooking it) is more than nourishment. In this session, we’ll explore our connection to food and the many ways we can write about it. We’ll consider writing about first memories of food from childhood, family food traditions, extraordinary and awful experiences eating food, and food memories associated with people and places. Writers will choose from among those options to write a short essay related to food.
Recipe Poems (No Chef Experience Required) (Jersey Shore Arts Center, Room 3)
Preheat, percolate, press. Sift, saute, stir. Recipe poems borrow the form and vocabulary of a traditional recipe but aren’t necessarily about cooking or baking. So, we won’t be writing poems with titles like “Recipe for Baking a Cake.”
We’ll start by reading and discussing example poems before moving on to brainstorming possible topics and terminology. Then, we’ll roll up our sleeves, put on our metaphorical aprons, and work with borrowed culinary lingo to whip up our own deliciously decadent recipe poems.
3:30 – 5:30 p.m. Free time for individual writing, heading to the beach, or exploring Ocean Grove
1:1 consultations with Vicki and/or Dawn available during this time.
Dinner on your own.
8:30 p.m. After dinner, participants can spend the evening writing on their own, socializing on the inn’s front porch or an informal reading in the parlor.
Sunday, October 13, 2024*
8:00 a.m. Breakfast
Limited complimentary continental breakfast is available at Laingdon. Bagels provided by Vicki and Dawn.
9:00 - 11:00 a.m. Participants will choose between writing poetry or prose, or try both, using prompts that Vicki and Dawn provide.
Collect, Collage, Create (Note: The preparation for this Sunday morning session will be introduced at the opening reception.)
Throughout the day on Saturday, writers prepare for this session by collecting ephemera: scraps of paper, newspaper clippings, tags off teabags, flower petals, pieces of seashell, matchbook covers, you name it. Writers can collect actual objects or take pictures with their phones – although some physical objects should be collected. They should also “collect” words that they observe. In Sunday’s workshop, we’ll use some of the ephemera and words to create a collage that will be tied to a poem or short piece of prose based on the objects. This exercise is based on a similar one shared in writer Jeannine Oeulette’s substack newsletter Writing in the Dark and a practice described by poet and memoirist Nick Flynn in an interview in the University of Arizona Poetry Center.
11:30 a.m. Lunch
12:15 p.m. Participants will choose either prose (Vicki) or poetry (Dawn).
Short, Shorter, Shortest: Writing Micro
What can you say in 300 words? We may dismiss micro prose (essays, memoirs, super short fiction) as too brief to capture what we have to say. Yet some have written entire memoirs using a collection of the micro form. Micro can also serve as vignettes between chapters of a book. And if you need a break from a 100,000-word manuscript – write something micro! We’ll try our hand at writing one or more micro prose pieces.
Let’s go...tiny: exploring three forms of poetry
Have you ever watched a show on tiny houses? It’s amazing to see what can fit in beautiful and compact spaces. And often times, the owners realize that less is definitely more. In this workshop, we’ll learn about the lune, tanka, and triolet. We’ll challenge ourselves to fit images/ideas/stories into three, five and eight lines and watch the beauty blossom in these tiny forms of poetry.
2:15 p.m. Free time and departure whenever you are ready.
*Room check-out is promptly at 11:00 a.m.
Our group has access to the common areas at the Inn through 3 p.m.
Schedule subject to change. A final schedule will be provided the week prior to the retreat.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Ocean Grove Beach, NJ, 43 Main Ave, Ocean Grove, NJ 07756-1562, United States,Neptune Township, New Jersey
