Guatemala

Stretch your body, mind, and soul
in the amazing Mayan landscape
of Lake Atitlan

February 7 - 14, 2009

with
Jacqueline Sheehan and Celia Jeffries

Join us for a week of writing, gentle nourishing yoga and a special art workshop. Each day begins with yoga, followed by a gourmet, vegetarian breakfast as we overlook the blue waters of Lake Atitlan. We will write most mornings and evenings, visit local pueblos for a deeper connection with the Mayan culture, and find time to nap in hand woven hammocks.

RETREAT INCLUDES
• 8 nights, 7 days lodging at Villa Sumaya. http://www.villasumaya.com/.
• 3 vegetarian meals/day, meat or fish available at extra cost.
• Morning yoga classes
• Daily writing workshops
• Individual manuscript critiques
• Art workshop
• Hot tub/sauna evening
• Mayan craft exhibitions
• Mayan shaman sunrise ceremony

COST
$1800 early bird special by November 14, 2008*
$1950 after November 15, 2008
$500 non-refundable deposit to hold space.
Balance due by January 15, 2009

*based on double occupancy

Does not include gratuities for hotel staff, transportation to and from Villa Sumaya, or additional purchases at the hotel.

ACCOMMODATIONS
All rooms at Villa Sumaya are spacious and comfortable for double occupancy, and include a private bath and patio or porch overlooking the lake. In our experience running retreats, writers benefit from having a room of their own. Therefore, we are offering single supplements at the reduced rate of an additional $300 for the week.

TRAVEL TO GUATEMALA
There are several airlines that connect to Guatemala City. You may find the best prices through your own particular way of searching, or you may contact Isaac Hilpman at Exito Travel who can coordinate your flight plans for you. 1-800-655-4053 ext. 8507. http://www.exitotravel.com. Mention Writing Journeys and you will receive a discount on your travel arrangements

GETTING TO LAKE ATITLAN
We recommend that you arrive in Guatemala no later than February 8th. You are responsible for getting from the airport to Antigua. The cost of a cab is about $30. Antigua is a beautiful city, filled with lively artisans, good food and a full range of hotels. Once you have registered for the retreat, we will send you a list of hotels from the humble-but-clean to the most cosmopolitan. We will all drive together from Antigua to Lake Atitlan, where we will take a short boat ride to reach Villa Sumaya. The cost of the van (roughly $10 per person depending on the size of our group) will be added to your bill at Villa Sumaya.

TRIP INSURANCE
We highly recommend that you purchase trip insurance. Trip insurance is available through Exito travel, 1-800-655-4053 ext. 8507 or www.exitotravel.com.

THE RETREAT
Celia and Jacqueline met in Findhorn, Scotland in 2001 and have traveled and written together many times since. In that time Celia completed her MFA and began teaching at Lesley University, as well as Writers in Progress and Patchwork Farms Retreat. Jacqueline has published two novels, including the current bestseller Lost & Found, and is also on the staff of Writers in Progress and Patchwork Farms Retreat. More about them below.

This retreat is designed to help all writers, first-timers as well as long-established writers, to leave the world of fear or expectation and write from a deeper sense of self. Jacqueline will offer morning yoga in the Blue Tiger temple, where she will create a safe and gentle atmosphere in which to expand our bodily awareness, connect us in mind, body, and soul and ground us in the special atmosphere of the Mayan highlands. Celia will lead the writing exercises each day, providing writing prompts to inspire and encourage us to play with and challenge our individual writing experiences. In addition, Nancy Bingham will offer unique art sessions to further the creative process.

YOGA PRACTICE Jacqueline will offer morning yoga sessions in the expansive Blue Tiger Temple. Each morning, we will practice yoga facing the dormant volcano on the opposite side of Lake Atitlan and watch the Great Blue Herons soar along the shore in search of their breakfast. Jacqueline offers a combination of Hatha Yoga, Anusara Yoga, and Therapeutic Yoga that is designed to help people find the place between effort and ease. The practice of yoga, the joining of body and mind, can open pathways for your writing into the feelings, memories, stories and images embedded in the body. We will encourage you to use your yoga practice to develop a deeper relationship with your body as well as to enjoy the physical and mental benefits of practice. The sessions are, of course, completely optional.

WRITING PRACTICE Celia will lead us each day in exercises designed to open our voices, quiet our inner critics, and generate new writing or expand ongoing writing projects. We will write together in response to prompts, and then be invited to read our work aloud. These supportive sessions range from twenty minutes to a full hour or more. Writers are always free to write with the group or to follow their own muse. Celia is certified in the Amherst Writers and Artists method of writing workshops, and has developed many of her own exercises after working and studying with Patricia Lee Lewis of Patchwork Farms.

JACQUELINE SHEEHAN, Ph.D., is a fiction writer and essayist. She is a New Englander through and through, but spent twenty years living in western states, including Oregon, California, and New Mexico. While living in the West, she did a variety of things that had nothing to do with writing, such as freelance photography, house painting, clerking in a health food store and directing a traveling troupe of puppeteers.

Her first novel, Truth, was published in 2003 by Free Press/Simon and Schuster. Her second novel Lost & Found, was published in April 2007 by Avon/Harper Collins. She has also published travel articles, short stories, numerous essays, and radio pieces. In 2005 she edited the anthology Women Writing in Prison. This anthology is the culmination of eight years of writing workshops sponsored by Voices from Inside, an advocacy group for incarcerated women.

Jacqueline is currently the fiction editor for Patchwork Journal. She teaches writing workshops at Writers in Progress in Florence, MA and at Grub Street in Boston, MA.

CELIA JEFFRIES, M.A., M.F.A, has an extensive background in education, journalism and editing. She has published short stories, poetry, interviews, and essays, and is currently working on a novel and a memoir. Celia ran writing workshops in the Boston area for six years before moving to Western Massachusetts. She is the managing editor of Patchwork Journal and has served as writer-in-residence at Forbes Library in Northampton. Celia is on the faculty of Lesley University and teaches writing workshops at Writers in Progress in Florence, MA.

MASK MAKING As part of our creative journey, Nancy Bingham will lead us through the elemental power of working with earth, air, fire, and water to create individual masks. At the beginning of the week we will work with the clay to create the masks, allow them to dry for a few days before firing them, and then await the magic of the process. Nancy, an artist who divides her time between Washington State and Lake Atitlan, is an enthusiastic teacher who says "Perfection is not the goal, but transformation.

For more information, please contact Celia or Jacqueline at celiajeff@comcast.net or jrsheehan@verizon.net.