Cambridge Writers’ Workshop at AWP 2015 Recap!

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Our annual AWP reading this year was “Books and Bones at Boneshaker Books.”
Boneshaker Books, a small bookstore that hosted the CWW’s annual AWP reading.
The audience at the reading, awaiting to hear a selection of poetry and prose from our readers.
Anca Szilagyi, our first reader, shared a piece called “Cauliflower Tells You,” featured in Monkey Bicycle.
CWW Exec board member Jonah Kruvant read an excerpt from his new book, “The Last Book Ever Written.”
Micah Dean Hicks shared a flash fiction piece and a nonfiction piece during the reading.
CWW Intern Alex Carrigan read an Adam and Eve satire called “The First Debate.”
Michele Nereim read an excerpt of a larger piece.
Bianca Stone read a few poems from her book “Someone Else’s Wedding Vows.”
Jessica Piazza read poems from her collections “Interrobang” and “This is Not a Sky.”
Jess Burnquist shared a few poems, all with a thematic inspiration from maritime flags
Dena Rash Guzman reading from a manuscript titled “Joseph,” about a feminist’s complicated relationship with the status quo.
Leah Umansky, reading a poem from her collection, “Domestic Uncertainties.”
Sheila McMullin read “Bad Woman” excerpts from her poetry collection “daughterarriums”
Brenda Peynado, reading a piece entitled “Blue Baby,” featured in the Mid-American Review
Big thanks to all our readers at the event. Back row, left to right: Jonah Kruvant, Jessica Piazza, Micah Dean Hicks, Alex Carrigan, Leah Umansky, Michele Nereim. Front row, left to right: Dena Rash Guzman, Jess Burnquist, Sheila McMullin, and Brenda Peynado. Not pictured: Anca Szilagyi and Bianca Stone.

CWW Intern Alex Carrigan manning the booth at AWP 2015.

From April 9-11, the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop was present at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs 2015 conference in Minneapolis, MN. Our organization was there with multiple goals in mind, from promoting our CREDO anthology to presses at the event to advertising our summer retreats in Paris and Granada. Our group was fortunate enough to be upgraded from a table to a full booth, giving us more room to work with and allowing visitors to see more of our materials and programs. Visitors were able to take flyers, CWW buttons, and even contribute to our daily exquisite corpse poems.

CWW Exec Board member Jonah Kruvant sold his new book, “The Last Book Ever Written,” at our booth.

Our staff for the event included CWW intern Alex Carrigan, who helped set the booth up and ran around networking with various publishers and presses. Executive Board member Jonah Kruvant was also at our table on Friday and Saturday. At the table, Kruvant sold and signed his new book, The Last Book Ever Written, a dystopian satire just released from PanAm Books.

Dena Rash Guzman and Leah Umansky, friends of the CWW, also were also present at our table for selling and signing their works. Umansky sold her Mad Men inspired chapbook, Don Dreams and I Dream, along with her book Domestic Uncertainties. Guzman was there with her poetry collection called Life Cycle, and both authors promoted the CWW-sponsored reading on Saturday.

Leah Umansky and Dena Rash Guzman signed their works at our table on Friday.

Leah Umansky and Dena Rash Guzman signed their works at our table on Friday.

On Saturday, the CWW headed over to Boneshaker Books for our scheduled reading “Books and Bones at Boneshaker Books.” The event featured twelve readers. Along with Carrigan, Kruvant, Guzman, and Umansky, readers included Anca Szilagyi, Micah Dean Hicks, Michele Nereim, Bianca Stone, Jessica Piazza, Jess Burnquist, Sheila McMullin, and Brenda Peynado. The two hour reading featured a great mix of poetry, short fiction, and book excerpts.

We had a great time at AWP, and we can’t wait to see you next year at AWP 2016 in Los Angeles!

Cambridge Writers’ Workshop’s AWP 2015 Exquisite Corpse #3

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ExquisiteCorpseThe Cambridge Writers’ Workshop is busy at the Association of Writers’ and Writers Programs Conference in Minneapolis this week, but while we’re not promoting our upcoming retreats or our CREDO anthology, we’re encouraging visitors to contribute to our exquisite corpse poem. Every day, we’ll post a new poem to the website. You can read Thursday’s poem here and Friday’s poem here.

Saturday’s CWW AWP “Corps Exquis”

I am a man weighed down by burden
of the unphysical sort, buckets of oil spelunking
on their own minus the centrifuge of dystopian
orgasms.

The spine is linked with marshmallows
melted over the sweet potato pie of ravaded
America.

…swallowing dust, digging dirt,
her white dress soiled, soul tainted…

eyes like tangerines, a Parliament
between her teeth, “Kill me,” she
screams into the asphalt.

My eyes are dried into raisins.

Cambridge Writers’ Workshop presents “Books & Bones,” our AWP 2015 Reading!

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The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop hosting an offsite reading event during the conference. “Books and Bones:  A Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Reading” is a poetry and fiction reading at Boneshaker Books on Saturday, April 11 from 3-5 pm. We’ve got twelve readers who will come and share some of their best work with our captive audience. Below are our profiles on each of the readers:

IMG_7596Anca L. Szilágyi is a Brooklynite living in Seattle. The longer she lives in Seattle, the stronger her Brooklyn accent seems to get. Her writing has appeared in Gastronomica, Fairy Tale Review, Cicada, and the Ploughshares blog, among other publications.

mbgmdrbvox_qe83kocogslibryphqly9vlj7nuf1f1uA writer, teacher, and student of the world, Jonah Kruvant received his Bachelor’s degree from Skidmore College, his Master’s degree in Teaching from Fordham University, and his MFA degree from Goddard College. After living abroad in four different countries, Jonah settled in New York.

 

Current ThumbnailMicah Dean Hicks is a Calvino Prize-winning author of fabulist fiction. His work has appeared in places like Witness, New Letters, Indiana Review, New Orleans Review, and Baltimore Review. His story collection, Electricity and Other Dreams, was recently published by New American Press and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. He attends the creative writing PhD program at Florida State University, where he studies fiction and folklore.

mm93kgAlex Carrigan has been an editorial and PR intern for the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop since May 2014. He holds a B.S. in Mass Communications: Print/Online Journalism and a minor in World Cinema from Virginia Commonwealth University. When he is not working for Cambridge, he is also the Staff Film Reviewer and a regular contributor for Quail Bell Magazine. He has had work published in Poictesme Literary Journal, Amendment Literary Journal, and Realms Magazine. He currently lives in Virginia and is looking for a career in publishing and art criticism.

10888391_10106225841395751_4542817941090068017_nMichele Nereim received her MFA from Florida State University. Her essay about the insanity of Florida football appeared on NPR, and, this past year year, she moved to Houston where she is working on her novel and her CRW Ph.D. at the University of Houston. Florida is her weird, colorful muse.

 

B (1)Bianca Stone is a poet and visual artist. She is the co-founder and editor of Monk Books, as well as the author of  Someone Else’s Wedding Vows (Tin House/Octopus Books 2014), and Antigonick (New Directions 2012, a collaboration with Anne Carson. She lives in Brooklyn.

jungleJessica Piazza is the author of two full-length poetry collections from Red Hen Press: Interrobang–winner of the AROHO 2011 To the Lighthouse Poetry Prize and the 2013 Balcones Poetry Prize – and Obliterations (with Heather Aimee O’Neill, forthcoming), as well as the chapbook This is not a sky (Black Lawrence Press.) She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California and is currently a contributing editor for The Offending Adam and a screener for the National Poetry Series. She is the co-founder of Bat City Review in Austin, TX and Gold Line Press in Los Angeles, and she teaches for the Writing Program at USC and the online MFA program at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. In 2015 she started the “Poetry Has Value” project, hoping to spark conversations about poetry and worth. Learn more at www.poetryhasvalue.com.

burnquistJess Burnquist was raised in Tempe, Arizona. She received her MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Arizona State University. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Time.com, Persona, Clackamas Literary Review, and various online journals.(See more at http://www.jessburnquist.com) She is a recipient of the Joan Frazier Memorial Award for the Arts at ASU. Jess currently teaches high school in San Tan Valley and has been honored with a Sylvan Silver Apple Award. She resides in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area with her husband, son, and daughter.

IMG_4254Dena Rash Guzman is the author of Life Cycle—Poems (Dog On A Chain Press, 2013.) Her work can be found online and in print at The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, Ink Node, Gertrude and others, as well as in anthologies from the United States to the People’s Republic of China. She is a disability rights advocate and a beekeeper. She resides in Oregon.

standing pic by edward brydonLeah Umansky is a poet, collagist and teacher in New York City. She is the author of the Mad Men inspired chapbook, Don Dreams and I Dream and the full-length collection Domestic Uncertainties.  Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such places as Forklift, Ohio, POETRY, and Coconut Poetry. She is also the curator of the Couplet reading series and her Game of Thrones inspired poems have recently been translated into Norwegian by Beijing Trondheim.

 

SMSheila McMullin is Assistant Editor for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts where she writes the column “Spotlight On!” celebrating literary magazines that publish a diverse representation of writers. She is Managing Editor and Poetry Editor for ROAR Magazine, as well as Communications and Outreach Coordinator for District Lit. She works as an after-school creative writing and college prep instructor and volunteers at her local animal rescue.  She holds her M.F.A. from George Mason University. Follow her on Twitter @smcmulli.

 

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Brenda Peynado has work appearing in The Threepenny Review, Mid-American Review, Black Warrior Review, Pleiades, Cimarron Review, Colorado Review, 3rd Place in Glimmer Train‘s Fiction Open Contest, and others. She received her MFA from Florida State University and her BA from Wellesley College. Last year, she was on a Fulbright Grant to the Dominican Republic, writing a novel. This year she is a PhD student at the University of Cincinnati.

Cambridge Writers’ Workshop’s AWP 2015 Exquisite Corpse #2

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exquisitecorpse031

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop is busy at the Association of Writers’ and Writers Programs Conference in Minneapolis this week, but while we’re not promoting our upcoming retreats or our CREDO anthology, we’re encouraging visitors to contribute to our exquisite corpse poem. Every day, we’ll post a new poem to the website. You can read Thursday’s poem here.

Friday’s CWW AWP “Corps Exquis”

There are three ways to skin a cat, and
I don’t recommend the second.
Keep up with the first one, otherwise
it might get messy.
Do not touch the glimmering insides as they
pierce the skin like the bone of the teeth.
Teething and sheathing
with a man’s last breath.
A luscious, delicious, Flower Monkey dances
with a radiant sense of self.
The sense is challenged,
barred by fun house mirrors.
The third way involves
pliers.
Don’t doubt your horses.
Shatter it for the jar. The big one.
I am hungover.

Cambridge Writers’ Workshop’s AWP 2015 Exquisite Corpse #1

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An exquisite corpse drawing by Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miro, and Max Morise

An exquisite corpse drawing by Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miro, and Max Morise

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop is busy at the Association of Writers’ and Writers Programs Conference in Minneapolis this week, but while we’re not promoting our upcoming retreats or our CREDO anthology, we’re encouraging visitors to contribute to our exquisite corpse poem. Every day, we’ll post a new poem to the website.

Thursday’s CWW AWP “Corps Exquis”

What I found conventional about unconventionality
was the rust-rimmed rebar bones
And the color the water turned in winter
When the leaves fell in and rotted: turquoise-grey
Like the magnet on the fridge,
the morning I got the news.
Winds, rain, crashing charge.
Arms Akimbo, she flies.

A Recap Of The Newport, Rhode Island 2015 Writing & Yoga Retreat

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Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Newport, Rhode Island Writing & Yoga Retreat! The retreat kicked off on Thursday night with dinner and a champagne toast. On Friday, Kathleen Spivack (author of With Robert Lowell and His Circle and Pulitzer Prize nominee) graced us with her presence.

Photo Apr 04, 11 42 38 AM

Executive Creative Director Rita Banerjee broke the ice with Literary Taboo followed by Weirding the World with renowned Brooklyn-based playwright Stephen Aubrey.

Photo Apr 04, 6 58 10 PM

Executive Artistic Director Norma Szkoloyai taught participants how to bring their voices from page to performance. Featured below is participant Claire Ince reading her piece alongside her own musical composition.

In the evening, Stephen Aubrey taught us how to break traditional Aristotelian structures during Against Aristotle: New Structures for New Stories.

A special thanks to Elissa Lewis who led Energizing Yoga every morning.

Photo Apr 04, 7 52 54 AM

Sound exciting? Join one of our upcoming retreats in Paris or Granada! To apply, visit cww.submittable.com. Applications for Paris must be submitted by May 5, 2015.

Cambridge Writers’ Workshop is coming to AWP 2015 in Minneapolis, Minnesota!

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The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop will be tabling at the Association of Writers and Writing Program (AWP)’s 2015 conference in Minneapolis, MN this April from April 9 to April 11. We’ve got some exciting plans for the event, so anyone who is in Minneapolis for the event should come see us. Last year’s event was a great success for us, allowing us to promote our CREDO anthology and advertise our Château de Verderonne retreat, and we hope we can have an even better experience this year.

We’ll be tabling at Table 954 near the AWP Event Stage. There, you will be able to find information regarding our upcoming yoga and writing retreats and other opportunities. You’ll be able to find info regarding our upcoming retreats in Paris and Granada. We’ll also have updates on our CREDO anthology and information for those who want to become members of the CWW or who want to apply for internships. Some of the people who will be sitting at our table will also be selling copies of their books and will be doing author signings, including CWW member Jonah Kruvant and CWW intern Alex Carrigan.

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We’ll also be hosting an offsite reading event during the conference. “Books and Bones:  A Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Reading” is a poetry and fiction reading at Boneshaker Books on Saturday, April 11 from 3-5 pm. We’ve got twelve readers who will come and share some of their best work with our captive audience. Below are our profiles on each of the readers:

IMG_7596Anca L. Szilágyi is a Brooklynite living in Seattle. The longer she lives in Seattle, the stronger her Brooklyn accent seems to get. Her writing has appeared in Gastronomica, Fairy Tale Review, Cicada, and the Ploughshares blog, among other publications.

mbgmdrbvox_qe83kocogslibryphqly9vlj7nuf1f1uA writer, teacher, and student of the world, Jonah Kruvant received his Bachelor’s degree from Skidmore College, his Master’s degree in Teaching from Fordham University, and his MFA degree from Goddard College. After living abroad in four different countries, Jonah settled in New York.

 

Current ThumbnailMicah Dean Hicks is a Calvino Prize-winning author of fabulist fiction. His work has appeared in places like Witness, New Letters, Indiana Review, New Orleans Review, and Baltimore Review. His story collection, Electricity and Other Dreams, was recently published by New American Press and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. He attends the creative writing PhD program at Florida State University, where he studies fiction and folklore.

mm93kgAlex Carrigan has been an editorial and PR intern for the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop since May 2014. He holds a B.S. in Mass Communications: Print/Online Journalism and a minor in World Cinema from Virginia Commonwealth University. When he is not working for Cambridge, he is also the Staff Film Reviewer and a regular contributor for Quail Bell Magazine. He has had work published in Poictesme Literary Journal, Amendment Literary Journal, and Realms Magazine. He currently lives in Virginia and is looking for a career in publishing and art criticism.

10888391_10106225841395751_4542817941090068017_nMichele Nereim received her MFA from Florida State University. Her essay about the insanity of Florida football appeared on NPR, and, this past year year, she moved to Houston where she is working on her novel and her CRW Ph.D. at the University of Houston. Florida is her weird, colorful muse.

 

B (1)Bianca Stone is a poet and visual artist. She is the co-founder and editor of Monk Books, as well as the author of  Someone Else’s Wedding Vows (Tin House/Octopus Books 2014), and Antigonick (New Directions 2012, a collaboration with Anne Carson. She lives in Brooklyn.

jungleJessica Piazza is the author of two full-length poetry collections from Red Hen Press: Interrobang–winner of the AROHO 2011 To the Lighthouse Poetry Prize and the 2013 Balcones Poetry Prize – and Obliterations (with Heather Aimee O’Neill, forthcoming), as well as the chapbook This is not a sky (Black Lawrence Press.) She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California and is currently a contributing editor for The Offending Adam and a screener for the National Poetry Series. She is the co-founder of Bat City Review in Austin, TX and Gold Line Press in Los Angeles, and she teaches for the Writing Program at USC and the online MFA program at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. In 2015 she started the “Poetry Has Value” project, hoping to spark conversations about poetry and worth. Learn more at www.poetryhasvalue.com.

burnquistJess Burnquist was raised in Tempe, Arizona. She received her MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Arizona State University. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Time.com, Persona, Clackamas Literary Review, and various online journals.(See more at http://www.jessburnquist.com) She is a recipient of the Joan Frazier Memorial Award for the Arts at ASU. Jess currently teaches high school in San Tan Valley and has been honored with a Sylvan Silver Apple Award. She resides in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area with her husband, son, and daughter.

IMG_4254Dena Rash Guzman is the author of Life Cycle—Poems (Dog On A Chain Press, 2013.) Her work can be found online and in print at The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, Ink Node, Gertrude and others, as well as in anthologies from the United States to the People’s Republic of China. She is a disability rights advocate and a beekeeper. She resides in Oregon.

standing pic by edward brydonLeah Umansky is a poet, collagist and teacher in New York City. She is the author of the Mad Men inspired chapbook, Don Dreams and I Dream and the full-length collection Domestic Uncertainties.  Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such places as Forklift, Ohio, POETRY, and Coconut Poetry. She is also the curator of the Couplet reading series and her Game of Thrones inspired poems have recently been translated into Norwegian by Beijing Trondheim.

 

SMSheila McMullin is Assistant Editor for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts where she writes the column “Spotlight On!” celebrating literary magazines that publish a diverse representation of writers. She is Managing Editor and Poetry Editor for ROAR Magazine, as well as Communications and Outreach Coordinator for District Lit. She works as an after-school creative writing and college prep instructor and volunteers at her local animal rescue.  She holds her M.F.A. from George Mason University. Follow her on Twitter @smcmulli.

 

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Brenda Peynado has work appearing in The Threepenny Review, Mid-American Review, Black Warrior Review, Pleiades, Cimarron Review, Colorado Review, 3rd Place in Glimmer Train‘s Fiction Open Contest, and others. She received her MFA from Florida State University and her BA from Wellesley College. Last year, she was on a Fulbright Grant to the Dominican Republic, writing a novel. This year she is a PhD student at the University of Cincinnati.

We hope you come visit us at the book fair and come to our reading. It will be a week of literature, poetry, performance, and culture, so we hope to see you there.

Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Newport, RI Writing Retreat feat. in Coldfront Magazine

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rhode-islandThe Cambridge Writers’ Workshop’s retreat to Newport, RI has been featured in Coldfront Magazine. The website featured details of our retreat, along with information to help interested parties register for the event.

If you’re interested in the event, you can read more details about the retreat here. You can also register for the event here. You can also check out our Facebook event post for the event. Registration for the event has been extended to March 15th and now includes tuition and a few meals.

Register by March 15 for our Newport, RI Writing & Yoga Retreat (April 2-5, 2015)

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Join us April 2-5, 2015

Our Newport retreat offers the opportunity for writers of all genres and levels to work alongside award-winning authors & editors to hone their craft and expand their writing skills, while working on new or existing projects. Famous for its seafood and coastline, we chose this location for its inspiring beauty and history. During free sessions in the afternoon, take a mansion tour of gilded-era Newport, visit the Newport Museum, listen to some Newport jazz classics, or just relax beside the ocean watching the sailboats and let the stunning location influence your writing.

Tuition includes:

  • Shared room lodging
  • Daily creative writing workshops 
  • Craft seminars
  • One-on-one manuscript consultations
  • Toasts
  • An orientation dinner
  • A farewell brunch 
  • Yoga and meditation classes

During the retreat, writers and yoga practitioners will learn craft techniques alongside award-winning and internationally-renowned authors such as Kathleen Spivack (fiction, poetry, nonfiction), Stephen Aubrey (playwriting, screenwriting), Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), & Diana Norma Szokolyai (poetry, nonfiction).  Yoga and meditation will be lead by Elissa Lewis. 

Included in the $650 tuition are all daily creative writing workshops, craft of writing seminars, one-on-one manuscript consultation, orientation dinner, toasts, and farewell brunch, plus daily yoga and meditation classes.  Shared room lodging is included. Please send us an email to inquire about partial attendance ($375 or $475 with shared lodging). Please inquire about optional add-ons include aromatherapy, massage, and reiki healing. There are limited seats for this workshop so apply early! There are limited seats, so apply early!  The extended deadline for admittance for our retreat is March 15, 2015.  Apply at cww.submittable.com.

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Faculty includes internationally renowned author and writing coach Kathleen Spivack (fiction, poetry, nonfiction), Stephen Aubrey (playwriting, screenwriting), Diana Norma Szokolyai (poetry, nonfiction), Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), and Elissa Lewis (yoga, meditation).

If you’d like to join us in Newport, please apply online at cww.submittable.com by March 15, 2015 and include $5 application screening fee along with a 5-page writing sample. (Due to limited seats, early applications are encouraged, but check for rolling admission after deadline, depending on availability).

applyExtended Deadline: March 15, 2015

Featured Faculty:

Stephen Aubrey is a Brooklyn-based writer, editor, dramaturg, lecturer, storyteller and recovering medievalist. His writing has appeared in Publishing Genius, Commonweal, The Brooklyn Review, Forté, Pomp & Circumstance, and The Outlet.  He is also a co-founder and the resident dramaturg and playwright of The Assembly Theater Company. His plays have been produced at The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, The Flea Theater, The Collapsable Hole, The Brick Theater, Symphony Space, the Abingdon Theater Complex, UNDER St Marks, The Philly Fringe and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where his original play, We Can’t Reach You, Hartford, was nominated for a 2006 Fringe First Award.

Kathleen Spivack is the author of A History of Yearning, winner of the Sows Ear International Poetry Prize 2010, first runner up in the New England Book Festival, and winner of the London Book Festival; Moments of Past Happiness (Earthwinds/Grolier Editions 2007); The Beds We Lie In (Scarecrow 1986), nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; The Honeymoon (Graywolf 1986); Swimmer in the Spreading Dawn (Applewood 1981); The Jane Poems (Doubleday 1973); Flying Inland (Doubleday 1971); Robert Lowell and His Circle (2011) and a novel, Unspeakable Things. She is a recipient of the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award 2010, the 2010 Erica Mumford Award, and the 2010 Paumanok Award. Published in numerous magazines and anthologies, some of her work has been translated into French. Other publications include The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Massachusetts Review, Virginia Quarterly, The Southern Review, Harvard Review, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Agni, New Letters, and others. Her work is featured in numerous anthologies. She has also won several International Solas Prizes for “Best Essays.”

Diana Norma Szkoloyai is author of the poetry books Roses in the Snow and Parallel Sparrows (Finishing Line Press). Her writing and hybrid art have appeared in Lyre Lyre, Dr. Hurley’s Snake Oil Cure, The Fiction Project, Teachers as Writers, Polarity, The Boston Globe, The Dudley Review, Up the Staircase, Area Zinc Art Magazine, Belltower & the Beach, and Human Rights News. Founding Literary Arts Director of Chagall Performance Art Collaborative and co-director of the Cambridge Writer’s Workshop, she holds an Ed.M from Harvard and an M.A. in French Literature from the University of Connecticut.

Rita Banerjee is a writer, and received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University. She holds an MFA in Poetry and her writing has been published in Poets for Living Waters, The New Renaissance, The Fiction Project, Jaggery, The Crab Creek Review, The Dudley Review, Objet d’Art, Vox Populi, Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure, and Chrysanthemum among other journals. Her first collection of poems,Cracklers at Night, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2010 and received First Honorable Mention for Best Poetry Book at the 2011-2012 Los Angeles Book Festival. Her novella, A Night with Kali, was digitized by the Brooklyn Art-house Co-op in 2011. She is a co-director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, and her writing has been recently featured on HER KIND by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and on KBOO Radio’s APA Compass in Portland, Oregon.

Elissa Lewis is the Yoga & Arts Coordinator of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop.  She began her journey with yoga in 2006, when she moved to France and made the practice part of her daily routine. She saw yoga as a lifestyle, not only a class, helping her to clear her mind and have more compassion for herself and others. In 2010 she moved to New York and completed her teacher training at Laughing Lotus, a creative, soulful yoga studio that teaches the student to ‘move like yourself.’ She’s taught private and group classes in Manhattan and Brooklyn ever since. Visit her website for informative yoga sequences and information.

Suggested Accommodations:

We encourage people to stay at the Architect’s Inn, as they are affiliated with Inn Bliss and will make your stay as comfortable as possible.  They are offering a special discount for people on our retreat.  Contact Nick Maione for details at (401)845-2547 and mention that you are with the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop.  Discounts will depend on the particular room and number of nights you are staying between April 2-5, 2015.

(Detailed list with descriptions and locations available here.)

Bed & Breakfast:

Newport Blues Inn, average nightly price from $109-$269
Marshall Slocum Inn, average nightly price from $137-$175
Ivy Lodge, average nightly price from $139-$209
La Farge Perry House, average nightly price from $149-$269
Hydrangea House Inn, average nightly price from $150-$233
Sarah Kendall House, average nightly price from $150-$295
Beech Tree Inn & Cottage, average nightly price from $155-$202
Almondy Inn, average nightly price from $175-$290
Cliffside Inn, average nightly price from $175-$365
Samuel Durfee House, average nightly price from $186-$233
Frances Malbone House, average nightly prices from $207-$395

Mid-Range Hotel:

The Attwater, average nightly price from $119-$409
Newport Harbor Hotel & Marina, average nightly price from $155-$185
Mill Street Inn, average nightly prices from $168-$228
Hyatt Regency Newport, average nightly prices from $229-$379

Budget Hotel:

Mainstay Hotel & Conference Center, average nightly prices from $64-$82
Carriage House Inn, average nightly prices from $99
Courtyard Marriott Newport Middletown, average nightly prices from $99
AirBnb Rentals, prices vary