"Your Amazing Life: How to Create It,"
with Sara Wiseman

Are you ready to take the next step on your life's path? Do you long to do your soul's work? Are you searching for clarity and direction?

Welcome to Sara's fun and experiential workshop for adults who are ready to experience immediate life changes via a direct connection to the Divine.

Learn how to:

• Clarify what you really want.
• Receive Divine guidance on what you actually need.
• Using energy, intention and prayer, manifest everything your heart longs for - from the ineffable (spiritual awakening) to the specific (a new job).
• Learn how to manifest specifically and correctly using writing.
• Learn the second and third stages of manifesting.
• Learn how to follow Divine clues and strands.

BRING: A journal to write in. Also, a sweater or extra layer-some times body temperatures shift when we are working Divine energies.

Sara's just-released Writing the Divine begins by explaining how to do channeled writing, how to use a journal for spiritual growth, and how to manifest in writing. The second part of Writing the Divine contains the messages Wiseman received in her own channelling. These 33 lessons make up a program of spiritual awakening that brings deep transformation and life change. "Sassy, funny, quirky, approachable, Writing the Divine is a great read filled with practical information on how to listen for the messages from the Divine. But take it seriously: There is wisdom in this work. Highly recommended," says Sophy Burnham, author of New York Times Bestseller A Book of Angels and of The Treasure of Montségur.

Author, channel, and psychic counselor Sara Wiseman experienced a spiritual awakening in 2008, when she received the 33 lessons in Writing the Divine: How to Use Channeling for Soul Growth & Healing. Sara's second book, Divine Child, will be released in 2010. Sara offers private readings at http://www.sarawiseman.com. An award-winning musician, she has released three healing CDS with her band Martyrs of Sound, http://www.martyrsofsound.com.

Buy the workshop, including a full lunch and a copy of Sara's book Writing the Divine: How to Use Channeling for Soul Growth & Healing - $33.00.

Buy a SIGNED Copy of Writing the Divine: How to Use Channeling for Soul Growth & Healing - $16.95

"Creating a Successful Writing Group,"
with Erica Bauermeister

A great writing group can hold your hand, kick your writing self into gear, keep you to your deadlines, and create a professional network. This workshop will cover everything from choosing your group members to organization, format, and expectations (both realistic and not.) Come prepared to participate! Erica is a member of the Seattle 7 Writers group. Visit www.seattle7writers.org to see some of the innovative things a writers group can do.

Erica's debut novel The School of Essential Ingredients, called "exquisitely written and heart-breakingly delicious" by reviewers, expresses how the act of cooking provides an opportunity to slow down and focus on our senses rather than the speed of our world. One by one, cooking school students are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of what they create: a lesson in cake-making leads to reflections on a marriage, tortillas teach a girl to believe in herself, and a man learns about love while creating tiramisu. Over time, the paths of the students mingle and intertwine, with results that are often unexpected, and always delicious. Published in 19 languages, The School of Essential Ingredients is an NPR Independent Bookseller's Best Summer Read and an Indie Next pick.

Erica says: I think cooking is a language... The women I met in Italy had learned cooking as children from their mothers. They approached ingredients as parts of a conversation; they knew how each ingredient talked to the others and they didn't need or want a recipe to tell them what to do. They simply listened to the food...

Born in Pasadena, CA, and now a resident of Seattle (and sometimes Port Townsend), Erica Bauermeister received her B.A. from Occidental College and her Ph.D. from the University of Washington. She is the co-author of 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader's Guide and Let's Hear It For the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. Erica credits motherhood, and a recent two-year stint in Bergamo, Italy, with making her the writer she is today. She is currently at work on her second novel. Find more information about Erica at http://www.ericabauermeister.com.

Buy the workshop, including a full lunch and a copy of Erica's novel The School of Essential Ingredients - $31.00.

Buy a SIGNED Copy of The School of Essential Ingredients - $15.00

"And That's the Way It Was: The Joys and Challenges of Writing Oral Histories," with Kit Bakke

An oral history is the written outcome of structured conversations that gather information and stories available from no other source. Oral histories have depth, breadth and personality. They are acutely reflective of human nature and are deliberately mindful of future readers.

Oral histories are not about facts that a writer can find in newspaper archives or historical texts. Oral histories document what the subject remembers, with all the color and idiosyncratic character each person brings to his/her life experience.

This workshop will cover techniques, tips and examples for:

• Preparing for the interviews (place, outline, background research, etc.)
• Conducting the interviews (constructing and sequencing questions, use of silence, easy vs. hard questions, prompts and props, interruptions, etc.)
• Writing the oral history (first vs. third person, tone, shape, edits and revisions)
• Problems and sticking points (accuracy, silence, libel)

Kit Bakke recently finished an oral history of 101-yr-old Hilda Evangeline Silva Sprague. Born in a log cabin on the Pilchuck River, Hilda's jobs included cooking in a logging camp, working in a plywood mill, and fruit-packing. Hilda has camped, fished and hiked all through the Cascades. She remains sharp as a tack, living on her own, and has only recently stopped mowing her lawn and chopping her firewood. The finished book was published by www.lulu.com for Hilda's family and friends. See it at http://www.lulu.com/content/1428561.

Kit Bakke's book Miss Alcott's E-Mail was called by the Boston Globe "A whirlwind exchange of ideas about reform and revolution." Thirty-six years ago, Kit, a member of the notorious Weather Underground protesting the Viet Nam war, was surrounded by U.S. police, guns drawn. Twenty-eight years later, just after the 9/11 attacks, Kit stood, singing with other Americans, as loud-speakers played America the Beautiful, and felt tears coursing down her cheeks. Kit says that was the moment, in many ways, that Miss Alcott's E-Mail was born. Kit discovered that Alcott was an independent thinker, civil war nurse, activist, champion of women's rights, and a neighbor and friend of Emerson and Thoreau. Alcott's novels were written to support her parents and siblings, who would otherwise have lived in extreme poverty. "Yours for reforms of all kinds," Louisa Alcott signed her letters. And so is Kit Bakke, it seems, beginning with this imaginative construction for a biography - in which Kit emails Miss Alcott about issues of the day - and Miss Alcott emails back.

"[Miss Alcott's E-Mail] is a delight. Recommended for all libraries." — Library Journal

"...intriguing and lively imaginary correspondence..." — Booklist

Buy the workshop, including a full lunch and a copy of Kit's book Miss Alcott's E-Mail - $38.00.

Buy a SIGNED Copy of Miss Alcott's E-Mail - $24.95

"Finding Your Voice in Memoir,"
with Glenda Burgess

Memoir is a form of literature that, like poetry, invites the reader deeper into the experience of reflection. In this workshop we will focus on "voice;" that is, the style, tempo, and structure of our narrative. We will learn to draw from the writer's toolbox to help structure our stories, whether choosing personal essay, adventure, journal, or narrative. Through writing exercises and sharing our work, we will come away with a solid understanding of how to create our story.

Each participant is asked to bring one written page to the workshop. This double-spaced page should focus on a scene from your life and include: a moment of "action" (event, decision, conflict, or confrontation), description of landscape (the setting), a few lines of dialog, and a sentence or two of reflection. This draft page is to get you thinking about what makes good storytelling, and thus - good reading.

Prior to class, please read one or two memoirs (of your own choosing, or from the list below). Read carefully for style and the writer's voice. Notice which events are detailed, and also, what is left out.

Examples:
Personal: Geoffrey Wolff's Duke of Deception; Vivian Gornick's Fierce Attachments; Jeanette Walls' Glass Castle; Elizabeth Edwards' Grace and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love.
Essays: Annie Dillard's For the Time Being and Anne Lamott's Tender Mercies.
Humor: David Sedaris' Naked; David Barry's Dave Barry is from Mars and Venus; and Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors.
Adventure: Dick Bass' Seven Summits and Robert Kull's Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes.
Survivor Story: Lance Armstrong's It's not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life

Glenda Burgess is a winner of the Rupert Hughes Award for literary fiction, and a short story finalist for the New Century Writer Award. Her memoir, The Geography of Love, was named one of The Ten Best Books of 2008 by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and was a finalist for the 2008 Books for a Better Life Award.

Glenda is also the author of two novels, Loose Threads and Exposures, as well as numerous short stories, freelance articles and magazine essays. Glenda is a popular workshop presenter, and has recently led workshops at the Hawaiian Writers Conference, The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Conference, Portland's Wordfest, and Eastern Washington University's Get Lit! Writers Festival. Read more about Glenda at her web site www.glendaburgessbooks.com.

Buy the workshop, including lunch and a copy of The Geography of Love - 10% OFF $31 $27.90

Buy a SIGNED Copy of The Geography of Love - $14.00

"The Page Turner: How to Keep Your Reader Hooked," with Maria Semple

What's better than a book you can't put down? And how can you capture that quality in your own writing?

In Maria's workshop, you'll learn pacing, character, dialogue, plot and narrative techniques that will infuse your work with compulsive readability. Come ready to participate in writing exercises, and to critically examine classic and contemporary works to see how these authors did it. Whether you're about to start, muddling though a first draft, or deep in revisions, you'll leave this workshop with tools that can transform your novel into a page turner.

Maria Semple spent her first two years of life in Spain where her father wrote the pilot for the TV series Batman. After graduating from Barnard College, Maria sold a movie script to Twentieth Century Fox. Thus began a fifteen-year career in television, writing for shows like Beverly Hills 90210, Ellen, Saturday Night Live, Mad About You and Arrested Development. But then Maria decided to resist Hollywood and return to her dream of novel-writing. Maria's first novel This One Is Mine, is a compassionate and wickedly funny satire about our need for more - and the often disastrous choices we make in the name of happiness. Maria and her family currently live in Seattle where she is at work on her second novel.

This One Is Mine is:
"Fun and engrossing," says Booklist.
"[A] sharp-witted look at having it all in L.A. and wanting more... Semple has the prime-time satire gene" says Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

For more information on Maria, check out her web site www.mariasemple.com.

Buy the workshop, including lunch and a copy of This One Is Mine - 10% OFF $33 $29.70

Buy a SIGNED Copy of This One Is Mine - $14.99