Writing
Workshops & Events
Read what Lisa's students
say about her her workshops.
PRIVATE
WRITING & AUTHORING SESSIONS:
Put yourself on the fast track and stimulate your writing ability
with one-on-one coaching. Private writing sessions are a very effective
way to hone your writing skills and launch your writing career. Lisa is
available in person, on the phone or via the internet and can provide
editing and feedback for your articles, short stories, book proposals,
and book manuscripts. Feel free to call and discuss your book project
and how her services and experience can assist you. The cost is $85/hour.
2008 WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Camille Cusumano & Lisa Alpine present:
A TANGOED WEB OF WORDS: A workshop of improvisation and total presence in writing and dance.
July Saturday 19 & Sunday 20. 10 AM - 4 PM. $145
(includes a hot Latin lunch both days)
Held at the Dance Weaver studio in Mill Valley, CA
Camille is author of the upcoming Seal Press book, TANGO: an Argentine Love Story. A travel memoir of a woman who "loved, lost, got mad---and decided to dance." She will be teaching writing exercise with Lisa and tango steps with her dance partner, Tomasso.
Tango, like Zen/or any meditation can fast-track one to a sacred place of bliss, harmony, rapture. In tango, one must be
totally present, and yet "not-think". In writing one must be totally present, and honest - and allow the deeper voices to guide them. With writing, it's not exactly a question of "not thinking" but of quieting the chatterbox narrator and letting the deeper/purer/truer self come forth and write. We'll alternate and weave back and forth between the dancing and writing.
Our theme of tango, a dance of improvisation, where there is a leader and follower, who meet and pool their identities for the greater good of a dance. We'll have specific exercises for the writing - how the seemingly separate roles of "leader" (or male impetus) and follower (or female receiver) affect one's writing. And yet even within each individual, we all have both the male and female energy to greater or lesser degrees. When writing these two energies also improvise and dance together.
Camille will demonsrate how tango is a simple dance in many ways --- all its patterns based on infinite variations of just six basic steps. She will also provide handouts on tango terms and a list of dance teachers around the Bay Area if students decide to develop their tangoed ways even more.
TRAVEL WRITING: Map Out the Route to Your Dream Profession
Saturday July 26
. 10 AM - 4 PM. $95
Sponsored by The Writing Salon in Berkeley
Do you love to travel? Keep a travel journal? Why not take the next step and turn your daily scribbles into salable articles? You can do this by learning two things: 1) how to improve your storytelling abilities, and 2) how to market your work. “I’ll lead you through the steps of writing a travel story and then targeting and querying your markets [short story anthologies, newspapers, magazines and ezines]," says instructor Lisa Alpine. "We'll also discuss ways to generate other travel-related sources of income, such as writing press releases and doing guidebook research. Whether you're writing about your neighborhood or rafting down the Zambezi, you can develop specialty travel angles that open up publishing avenues beyond the Sunday Travel Section — and still pay well." So come launch your career as a travel writer!
STORYDANCE: A Dance & Writing Workshop
August Saturday 2 & Sunday 3. 10 AM - 4 PM. $125
(includes lunch both days)
Held at the Dance Weaver studio in Mill Valley, CA
How do these two art forms support one another? The mind is loosened by the movement and the movement is defined by the words. I believe that dancing and writing make a lovely duet in the creative firing of the inspirational juices. This workshop will cover these territories in both dynamic art forms: Setting the scene * Awakening all the senses * Building tension * Developing character * Adding emotional qualities. No dance or writing experience neccessary.
September Saturday 13. 10 AM - 4 PM. $85 (includes a delicious, sensual lunch)
Taught in Mill Valley, CA.
Learn how to infuse your writing with detailed imagery, passionate feeling, poetic depth and evocative sensual description. This workshop will be a delicious experiment in developing your ability to describe a scene or experience in the Technicolor of the senses. In-class writing exercises will show you how to weave poetic description into your prose, how to cultivate the five senses in describing a place or experience, and how to develop emotional imagery. We shall dig beyond generic descriptions so that your writing comes uniquely alive for your readers and immerses them in the story. Incorporate this into your storyline, and you'll end up with pieces that are both practical and lyrical
Audette Sophia & Lisa Alpine present:
POETRY IN MOTION: Weaving Words With Movement
September Saturday 27. 10 AM - 4 PM. $95 (bring lunch)
Taught in Mill Valley, CA.
Take a leap into a new, stimulating and healthy way to explore your poetic flow. Add dance to your writerly repertoire, and find a new way to tap into the poetry that dances within you. "We'll flex not only our movement muscles, but our ability to pull descriptive words from our subconscious and string them into dance-inspired poetry," says instructor Lisa Alpine.
This workshop will begin with a deep, guided stretch and dance warm-up to a wide range of music (from techno to trance, blues to Celtic, Reggae to African, to the fullness of your own silence). This will be followed by several poetry exercises, such as "dialogue duets" and solo dances with "spontaneous witness" writing. "We'll talk about how to let the words flow unencumbered onto the paper," says Lisa, "and then find "hot spots" that can be condensed into poetry."
Upcoming Events in 2008
WOW! WOMEN ON WRITING: A Conference For Readers & Writers
Saturday March 1. 9 AM - 4 PM. $60 - $100.
Skyline College, San Bruno, CA.
I will be moderating a Wild Writing Women workshop panel at this writing conference titled: THE ART OF TRAVEL WRITING: Turning Miles Into Smiles. The members of the Wild Writing Women are just one of many authors presenting at this event that celebrates International Women's Day. For more information on the presenters and registering, call 650-738-4324 or visit: www.SkylineCollege.edu
For more details on my writer's group, the Wild Writing Women, go to wildwritingwomen.com
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Thank you for an extraordinary day! Your exuberant nature charged us all. The antidotes for rejection where completely uplifting and provided a whole new perspective. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for having this class. - PJ Walker As I was filming my 61-year-old husband surfing on Maui this last week, I was listening to the surf and thinking, thinking, thinking about the sounds and how best to describe them!!!! What an impact your class has had on me. - Jill I
thoroughly enjoyed your travel writing class! It helped to make
me even more excited about writing and traveling, and I appreciated
the encouragement you gave me. I'd take another class from you in
a heartbeat - it was fun and as I was telling my partner and friends,
the time went by so quickly and held my interest for the whole 6 "I just wanted to say thank you so much for the wonderful travel writing workshop. The information you provided was very useful--I felt like I really got a sense of how to approach travel writing from a business perspective (which is something that I was really unfamiliar with before) and I really felt inspired by the whole workshop. I think the best advice you gave was to keep on writing and keep on working on improving your writing. I am the type of person who has a lot of good ideas for travel writing, but I rarely finish my stories. However, since the workshop I have been working on setting deadlines for myself and just setting aside time every day for the purpose of writing. I begin graduate school next week (MA in English) and I'm sure that I will be doing tons of reading and writing for the program--but your advice holds true to all forms of writing, travel or otherwise. My life is quite busy right now and I don't know how soon I will actually finish my travel stories and send them out, but I know that it is something that I really want to do, and your workshop was definitely an inspiration to keep plugging away at it. And, besides some weekend getaways I have planned in the near future, I'm planning a trip to south America (Buenos Aires, Uruguay, Santiago and some of the Chilean wine region) so I'm sure I will have lots of ideas to put to work. Well, that's all for now, good luck with your endeavors and thanks again for being such a great teacher. - Kareasa Wilkins Thanks for the gift of self belief because without you my writing career would still be an idea to consider. It’s the well placed “call yourself a writer” that catches my attention and talks to my heart and makes me think hard for a week. I know that when I come to your class that I only have to think a question due to your keen ability to answer every one of my unasked questions at exactly the right time. I come away feeling completely validated and inspired. How you can accomplish this for a room full of students is amazing. Talk about intuition! - Phoebe Beringer Thank you so much for your guidance and words of encouragement today. I feel as though the journey has officially begun. - Angela Hale "I thought your class was entertaining, inspiring, informative. A perfect class. Thank you so much. I enjoyed looking at your website, and so many of your interests are ones that I share, that I'm sure I've read many of your travel articles without knowing they were by you." - Kate Thank you for the inspiring class last Saturday. I was sad to see the day end. You gave us practical details and also for me, a glimpse into the absolute pleasure of writing about place. I was embarrassed to return from lunch late but I lost track of time on our assignment to collect dialog. I was amazed at your insight into what each of us shared-it was like you had a tiny, tiny beam of light and you were able to point it exactly at the heart of the intent. That was cool. I finally understand the role of becoming part of a writer's group. Now it seems essential. Thank you again. It was an absolute pleasure. - Bonnie Smetts Thank you so much for today! I am inspired, wired and ready to plug in! Iam finally feeling that I've met the right person to help me get published! YEAH! Thank you, thank you, thank you! - Cindy Fisher, MA, CPCC Thank you for being such a generous teacher and writing guide. You are really gifted at cutting to the chase, finding the core essence of a piece, concept or scene, and helping writers focus on the meat. Thank you, thank you for inspiring me to believe I can actually do this writing thing, and possibly even make a living with it. Thank you again for everything, Lisa. You're a true writing sister!! - Annette Lindemann Thank you for a day of inspiration & creativity- napping, learning,
eating & laughing in such a nurturing space put me in a very
good place. In fact, I started my homework assignment just last night! Listening
to Brazilian music at Cafe Amsterdam, my friend leans over
& whispers, "do you know who that woman is sitting to your
left?" Turns out, it was Dori Green, a jazz legend who played
with Sinatra. Many thanks for the memories of our session at your beautiful table in your beautiful home with your beautiful view -- AND, moreso, thanks for our connection, your warmth, talent, interest, and for rekindling my desire to get this piece done, done right, and out the door. - Darcy Symes |
To register for workshops, inquire about private writing & authoring sessions,
article assignments & reprints, and other info:
Contact Lisa Alpine at writing@lisaalpine.com or call 541 941 4759
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