Thought I’d pass this along since I happen to adore Ellen Bass, Big Sur and the Esalen Institute:

There is a world inside each of us that we know better than anything else, and a world outside of us that calls for our attention. Our subject matter is always right with us. The trick is to find out what we know, challenge what we know, own what we know, and then give it away in language.

We will write poems, share our writing, and hear what our work touches in others. We’ll also read model poems by contemporary poets and discuss aspects of the craft. But mainly this will be a writing retreat– time to explore and create in a supportive community. Though the focus is on poetry, prose writers who want to enrich their language will find it a fertile environment.

*You’ve hit a plateau in your writing and want to break through to the next level.

*You’re just beginning and want to get started with supportive teachers.

*You’re an experienced writer and just want a chance to learn more from the best.

*You’re in a dry spell, due to lack of inspiration or time.

*You love to write and want a gorgeous, inspiring retreat.

Although the emphasis is on poetry, this workshop is open to prose writers too. Rich, textured, evocative language is the province of all writers, so this workshop will be applicable to writers of fiction and memoir as well.

Lastly, there’s Esalen itself. If you’ve been to Esalen before, you already know it’s one of the most magnificent places on the planet. If you haven’t, don’t postpone it. It’s breathtakingly beautiful and deeply nourishing. We’ll be having our group meetings in the Big House overlooking the Pacific. We’ll also be breaking into smaller groups for individual attention. Participants will have an opportunity to work with all three teachers.

ELLEN BASS’s most recent book of poems, The Human Line, was published by Copper Canyon Press in June 2007. She co-edited (with Florence Howe) the groundbreaking No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women (Doubleday, 1973), has published several volumes of poetry, including Mules of Love (BOA, 2002) which won the Lambda Literary Award. Her poems have appeared in many magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, The Progressive, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, and The Sun. She was awarded the Elliston Book Award for Poetry from the University of Cincinnati, Nimrod/Hardman’s Pablo Neruda Prize, The Missouri Review’s Larry Levis Award, the Greensboro Poetry Prize, the New Letters Poetry Prize, the Chautauqua Poetry Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, and a Fellowship from the California Arts Council. She is also co-author of Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth (HarperCollins 1996) and The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (Harper Collins 1988, 1994), which has sold over a million copies and has been translated into ten languages. She teaches in many beautiful locations and at Pacific University’s MFA Program in Oregon.

DORIANNE LAUX’s fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon (W.W. Norton), is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award.  It was also short-listed for the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States in the previous year, and chosen by the Kansas City Star as one of the ten best books of poetry published in 2005. Laux is author of three collections of poetry from BOA Editions, Awake (1990) introduced by Philip Levine, to be reprinted this year by Eastern Washington University Press, What We Carry (1994), finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Smoke, (2000).  She is co-author of The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (W.W. Norton, 1997).   Her work has appeared in the Best of the American Poetry Review, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and has been twice included in Best American Poetry. She has been awarded with a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship.  She waited tables and wrote poems in San Diego, L.A., Berkeley, Petaluma and Juneau, Alaska before moving to Eugene where she taught Creative Writing at the University of Oregon. She now teaches at Pacific University and at North Carolina State University in Raleigh where she lives with her husband, poet Joseph Millar.

JOSEPH MILLAR   is the author of Fortune, from Eastern Washington University Press. Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa says  “There’s a tenderness at the core of Fortune, where the commonplace becomes atypical and fantastical, and each poem possesses a voice that summons and reveals. Joseph Millar is a poet we can believe.”  Millar grew up in Pennsylvania, attended Johns Hopkins University and spent 25 years in the San Francisco Bay area, working at a variety of jobs, from telephone repairman to commercial fisherman. His first collection, Overtime (2001) was finalist for the Oregon Book Award and his poems have appeared in numerous magazines including TriQuarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, DoubleTake, Ploughshares, New Letters, Manoa, and River Styx. He has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in Poetry, the Moncalvo Center for the Arts and from Oregon Literary Arts.  Millar teaches at Pacific University’s Low Residency MFA Program.

Esalen fees cover tuition, food and lodging and vary according to accommodations–ranging from $570 to $1105. The least expensive rate is for sleeping bag space which can be very comfortable, but it’s limited, so you need to sign up for it early. Some work-scholarship assistance is available, as well as small prepayment discounts and senior discounts.

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Ellen Bass