Welcome to The 12-Hour Writers Retreat!
What’s the 12-Hour Writers Retreat?
UPDATE: Kim Blaeser’s Oct. 26 retreat is sold out! Stay tuned for more info on our Oxbow Writers Retreat happening January 18-19, 2025!
It’s not easy to sneak away from daily life to attend a weeklong writers retreat. But might you sneak away for a day? Welcome to the 12-Hour Writers Retreat—a morning-to-night writing experience committed to supporting your work from idea to live reading! On Saturday, October 26, join 20 fellow writers for a fun (and food!) filled day at Forage. Enjoy guided writing exercises, unencumbered freewriting time, a supportive workshop, and a final show featuring you!
This retreat will be hosted by writer-in-residence and former Wisconsin poet laureate Kimberly Blaeser. Scroll on to learn more!
Writers 21+ are encouraged to register.
About the Writer-In-Residence
Kimberly Blaeser, past Wisconsin Poet Laureate and founding director of In-Na-Po—Indigenous Nations Poets, is a writer, photographer, and scholar. She is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Copper Yearning, the bilingual Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance, and the 2024 volume Ancient Light. Blaeser edited Traces in Blood, Bone, and Stone: Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry and wrote the monograph Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition. Her photographs, picto-poems, and ekphrastic pieces have appeared in exhibits such as “Visualizing Sovereignty,” and “No More Stolen Sisters.” An Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist, she is an enrolled member of White Earth Nation. The 2024 Mackey Chair in Creative Writing at Beloit College and a Vassar College Tatlock Fellow, Blaeser is a Professor Emerita at UW–Milwaukee and an MFA faculty member for Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Her accolades include a Lifetime Achievement Award from Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas. Blaeser splits her time between her home in rural Wisconsin and a water-access cabin near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota.
About The Space
Nestled in the heart of downtown Eau Claire, Forage is a versatile event venue perfectly suited for our writers retreat. Complete with writing spaces, performance spaces, and a beer and wine bar, Forage will help us create the ideal conditions to help your writing thrive.
About The Experience
The Chippewa Valley Writers Guild strives to provide inclusive writing experiences for all writers of all levels and genres. While Amy is primarily a poet and memoirist, ALL writers of all genres are encouraged to attend! Our goal is to provide an opportunity to inspire, instruct, and rejuvenate writers in a safe, communal space. We create, collaborate, and celebrate together!
Schedule for October 26
9 :00 Arrive at Forage; welcome, Icebreakers
9:15 Writing Prompts w/ Kimberly Blaeser
10:00 Freewriting Time/Optional Conferences w/Kimberly Blaeser and B.J. Hollars
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Freewriting Time/Optional Conferences w/Kimberly Blaeser and B.J. Hollars
3:00 Snack Break Social Hour
3:30 Mini-group workshops
4:30 Final revision/Reading guidelines established (4 minutes/reader)
5:00 Dinner
6:30 Show Prep
7:00 Showtime
9:00 Farewell
About The Food and Drink
Drinks: Complimentary coffee and tea will be provided throughout, and wine and beer will be served in the evening at your own expense.
Lunch and Dinner: Both our meals will be prepared on-site by Forage chefs.
Cost
$105.00 (includes coffee, tea, lunch and dinner from Forage, and space and instruction courtesy of Kimberly Blaeser).
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