Creative Writing Workshops & Retreats
Developmental Editing Memoir Writing
Life Story Writing
Literary consultation
with Nancy Rose, RN, MST, MFA
For more INFO and/or to Register: blueberryhillwriting@mac.com
Creative Writing Workshops
For more INFO and/or to Register: blueberryhillwriting@mac.com
You’ve always wanted to write. Here’s your chance: write with Nancy Rose. For experienced and emerging writers of all genres—poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, memoir, life story writing. We write in response to prompts, using the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) workshop method created by Pat Schneider. Participants may also offer manuscripts for group review. No previous writing experience required. Handouts at each session.
Limited to 8 writers. blueberryhillwriting@mac.com
Saturday Writing Retreats
Fully immerse yourself in writing. Each Saturday retreat begins with refreshments as we gather together to write, to reacquaint ourselves with our innate creativity and restore ourselves after the long work-week. We will deepen our commitment to our writing, tap memories, explore new material and discuss our varying writing lives and routines. Blueberry Hill is located on the lee side of beautiful Mt. Orient. Stroll the many acres of meadow and orchard, walk the woodland trails, visit the frog pond or sit on the patio and dream. No previous writing experience required. Feel free to bring work you’ve begun at home. Fee includes refreshments, snacks and multiple handouts. Bring your own LUNCH (full kitchen available). All retreats require payment in full two weeks before start date. Info: blueberryhillwriting@mac.com.
Writing Life Stories
6-Session commitment. Writing a life story differs from writing a memoir, though there are similarities. Rather than writing a “slice of life” story, which a memoir may be, Life Story Writing is geared toward those of us who have entered our autumn years and want to tell the whole story while we still have time. Here’s your chance to review your life so far, to recall highlights, anecdotes, and joys, to remember the people and events that have influenced you, and to consider the roads taken and not taken. Tell your story in your own words. Story is really all we have of ourselves. Anne Lamott says, “You’re going to feel like hell if you wake up one day and you never wrote the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart: your stories, memories, visions and songs, your truths, your version of things, in your own voice.”
For more info and to register: blueberryhillwriting@mac.com
Writing Our Way Through Loss
3-Session commitment (six sessions optional) for those experiencing grief and/or living with loss, either personally or relationally. We will write about who and where we are now, where we need to be to become our best selves, and we will let our words take us there. This is not a therapy group, though writing is certainly therapeutic. Reading aloud is never required, but if we choose to share our words, group responses will focus on the writing, not the writer. For more info and to register: blueberryhillwriting@mac.com
Manuscript Intensive
6-session commitment. Focus is on craft and deep revision. Group is limited to six writers who are committed to serious revising AND are willing to carefully read & comment on the work of other participants. Application (with sample of writing in your preferred genre) required. For info and specifics: blueberryhillwriting@mac.com.
Spiritual Autobiography
An exploration of our spiritual selves: who or what has influenced and inspired us, what has set us on our current spiritual paths. Open to people of ALL faiths as well as skeptics, seekers, and doubters. We will explore internal sources of faith and hope. We will tap early memories and impressions of the divine and contemplate possible paths that lie before us. In response to guided writing, participants will be invited to share emergent insights and discoveries, though we will keep private the content of our writing. Limited to eight participants. Info and specifics: blueberryhillwriting@mac.com.
Literary Consultation & Mentoring
Are you interested in writing a memoir but unsure how or where to begin? Do you have an idea for a story, but can’t find time in your busy schedule to get words on paper? Do you have short stories, essays, or poems underway, but don’t know how to fine-tune and weave them together into a collection?
Together, we will plan your literary journey by focusing on your goals, your writing interests and habits, your current time commitments and lifestyle.
Consultation package for NEW clients: fee includes two (optional) consultations and review/critique of up to 40 pages of prose pages or 7 to 10 poems. blueberryhillwriting@mac.com for info and specifics.
What are you waiting for? Write with me…on Blueberry Hill…
Meet Nancy Rose
Nancy Rose, MFA, MST, RN is an award-winning fiction writer, essayist, literary consultant, developmental editor, Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) affiliate, and former editor of the literary journal Peregrine. Nancy teaches creative writing and leads writing workshops and retreats throughout the northeast. She specializes in short and long fiction, life-story writing, and essays. Her short stories and essays have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, magazines and periodicals, and have won awards.
In the middle of her career in community health, health care management, program development, and health education, Nancy became managing editor of Peregrine (AWAPress). For twenty-two years, she served also as literary editor of Peregrine. Since the early 80s, she has taught young writers, high school students, Five-College undergraduates, and adult writers. She has been a member of the Amherst Health Care Advisory Board, an OB nurse, an ER nurse, an ASPO certified childbirth educator, lactation consultant, Red Cross instructor, communicable disease specialist to local boards of health, community health nurse, and visiting lecturer at the University of Massachusetts. Nancy serves on various committees, including the Pelham Council on Aging, the Pelham Democratic Town Committee, Amherst Neighbors, Episcopal Women, Planned Parenthood, and Aircraft Owners & Pilots Assn. When weather cooperates, she flies with her pilot husband their Cessna Skyhawk. Nancy is a painter, calligrapher, and animal rehabilitator who lives in awe of all the wild animals who daily visit her mountainside dwelling.
Nancy is a currently licensed RN and member of the American Holistic Nurses Association (AHNA), the Massachusetts Nurses’ Association (MNA), and the Society for the Arts in Health Care, with expertise in family and community health, women’s health, reproductive health, health counseling, behavioral health, and wellness. She leads workshops and retreats for health care professionals and artists: for NURSES: Nurturing the Nurse; for all HEALTH CARE professionals: Narrative Transformation; and for ARTISTS: Integrative Imagery.
For more INFO and/or to Register: blueberryhillwriting@mac.com