STEWARD YOUR LITERARY LEGACY

You have built a lifetime of story through writing in letters, journals, daybooks, and love notes. What does it all mean now? What might we do with all that writing that is so personal writing, raw, and immediate?  How and who will steward our legacy of stories after we die?

After years of teaching others to keep a daily journal, and a lifetime of writing daily, Suzi Banks Baum is exploring the stewardship of our literary legacy. In this workshop you will review selected pieces that you’ve written, generate new writing, and create a plan for how to handle your body of personal writing with reverence, ceremony, and in community.

In this retreat, we will work with our writings to harvest stories and memories into a small book, made during the workshop, as a way to carry the riches of our writing into the present. We will discuss and make plans for how we want our journals and letters to be dealt with in our wills or with our family members. And we will create a ritual to release some of these pages or letters in a ceremony on Sunday morning.

In the warmth of a deep winter weekend retreat, join with others who want to care for their legacy with care and mindful attention.  Please bring a selection of your personal writings. These can be daybooks, journals, letters, and calendars. This workshop is not intended to replace therapy or a legal arrangement for your belongings. Rather it is a tangible encounter with the materials we have left marks on in our lives. Be prepared to share in small groups, to write, to make a small book, and to participate in a ceremony on the grounds of Genesis.

• Participants are asked to read “When Women Were Birds” by Terry Tempest Williams
• Bring at least 10 items of writing, journals, letters, daybooks or calendars.
• Bring at least one item you would be willing to burn.
• Consider bringing a small piece of art you have made in your lifetime.
• Bring a current journal and favorite pen.
• All other supplies will be provided by the instructor.

$330. Private room with meals. 

Facilitated by Suzi Banks Baum

Suzi Banks Baum dwells at the crossroad of literary and visual arts. A writer, mixed media and book artist, she expresses the holy ordinary. Banks Baum teaches daily creative practice for writers, artists, and creative thinkers in many settings, including as a visiting artist in Gyumri, Armenia and guest faculty in schools and writing conferences. Originally trained as a theatre artist, Banks Baum’s work can be found in private collections, online, and in such published work as the Walloon Writers Review.