Tag Archives: Paris

Happy New Year 2015 from the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop!!

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CWW-NY2015 Happy New Year 2015 from the directors and staff of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop! We hope you’re all as excited for 2015 as we are!  We’re planning a delightful, productive year for our writers and artists with plenty of opportunities to travel, write, practice yoga, and network, and we’re looking forward to seeing you at our retreats, workshops, readings, and literary fest events in 2015!

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop had a wonderful year in 2014.  Over the last twelve months, we’ve had a chance to hold retreats and readings across America and the world, meet exciting writers, yoga practicioneers, and artists, and have found new ways to inspire our own writing.  Our year began with the 2014 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Seattle, WA in February. At AWP 2014, we got a chance to announce our CREDO Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writing, promote our new literary internships,  and discuss our Summer 2014 Château de Verderonne Yoga & Writing Retreat, and our AWP 2014 A Night at the Victrola Reading. At AWP 2014, CWW Directors, Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai signed copies of their books, Cracklers at Night and Parallel Sparrows, respectively.  And our A Night at the Victrola, featuring readings from authors such as Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokollyai, Peter Mountford, Anca Szilágyi, Nancy Jooyoun Kim, Pattabi Seshadri, Susan Parr, Johnny Horton, Talia Shalev, Leah Umansky, Dena Rash Guzman, Kevin Skiena, Jessica Day, and Carrie Kahler.  Our AWP 2014 literary reading was even featured in Vanguard Seattle as a top AWP reading event.

After AWP 2014, we were off to our annual writing and yoga retreat to the Château de Verderonne in Picardy, France. The event, which was featured in Poets and Writers and Quail Bell Magazine, was a chance for writers to spend two weeks in the French countryside, participating in writing workshops and craft of writing seminars, yoga classes, and culturally tours of Paris and Chantilly. We liveblogged the entire event as well, sharing dozens of photos from our trip while also allowing our writers to share their thoughts on the experience.

Our New Yorker members also hosted an event as part of LitCrawl Manhattan in September 2014.  Our Literary Masquerade featured readings of poetry, noir, science fiction, and original songs from Diana Norma Szokolyai, Rita Banerjee, Gregory Crosby, Elizabeth Devlin, Jonah Kruvant, and Nicole Colbert.

We also hosted an annual Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga and Writing Cleanse in November 2014. The two day event kicked off with yoga lessons from Elissa Lewis, followed by fresh juice cleanses, and creative writing workshops and craft seminars from Diana Norma Szkolyai, Jessica Reidy, and Jonah Kruvant.  Some of the creative writing classes included on the retreat included “The Art of Withholding,” “The Art of Revision” and “Sense of Smell, Memory, and Narrative.”   Our Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga & Writing Cleanse was an opportunity for the participants to cleanse themselves mentally, spiritually, and creatively before the bustling holiday season, and was even featured in a piece in Quail Bell Magazine.

In 2014, we also began work on CREDO Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writing.  The collection will feature personal writer manifestos, essays on writing advice, and writing exercises to help spur creativity. Our staff has greatly enjoyed critiquing and conversing with writers on this publication, and more information about our featured writers will be announced shortly.

In 2014, we also welcomed our first interns to the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, and these interns include the wonderful  Alex Carrigan, Katy Miller, and Megan Tilley, all of whom have helped the CWW greatly this year. They’ve helped manage our social media and written up post about our events, critiqued and edited submissions for CREDO, shown their talent for graphic design and corresponding with writers and hosts in French, Spanish, and English, and have provided much valuable assistance on our retreats and literary events this year.  We’re excited to have Alex, Katy, and Megan on our team, and we can’t wait to show you what they’ve helped us plan for 2015!

This was also a good year for our individual staff members getting published. Quail Bell Magazine featured plenty of creative writing from our staffers, including Jessica Reidy’s essay on novel research in Paris, Norma and Rita’s Mis/Translation poems, Megan Tilley’s poem “Puddle,” and Alex Carrigan’s poem “When I First Saw Her.” Reidy also had a series of trauma poems featured in Luna Luna Magazine and Tilley was featured in Fictionvale. Szokolyai was also named one of twenty Romani authors you should be reading by VIDA and published in the anthology Other Countries: Contemporary Poets Rewiring History.

While 2014 proved to be a very exciting year for all of us, our staff is quite ready to move on to our next round of exciting events. The CWW will once again table at AWP in Minneapolis from April 8-11, 2015 You can find us at the AWP 2015 Bookfair at Table 954. We will also be planning an offsite reading, and more information about that will come as we get closer to the event.

Join us April 2-5, 2015 for our first annual springtime Writing & Yoga Retreat in beautiful and gilded Newport, Rhode Island.  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.  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).  Registration closes on February 20, 2015 and spots are limited, so sign up on cww.submittable.com as soon as you can.

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Summer in Paris Writing Retreat will take place July 22-30, 2015 in France. The retreat offers participating writers of all genres and levels to work alongside award-winning authors and editors. Participating writers will hone their craft and expand their writing skills, while working on new or existing projects.  There will also be time to explore the city of Paris in all of its historical, literary, and romantic charm. Situated in heart of Paris’ Montparnasse neighborhood, amongst the fresh and popular open air markets and charming boutiques, the hotel where we will stay is full of charm and our Moroccan themed classroom will offer a wonderful oasis to practice the writing life.  Faculty includes internationally renowned author and writing coach Kathleen Spivack (poetry, fiction, nonfiction), David Shields (fiction, book-length essay), Diana Norma Szokolyai (poetry, nonfiction), Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), and Elissa Lewis (yoga, meditation).  If you’d like to join us in Paris, please apply online at cww.submittable.com by May 5, 2015.

And from August 3-10. 2015, join the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop on our summer writing retreat to the cultural oasis of Granada, Spain. Located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Andalucía, Granada is one of the gems of Spain and has inspired writers from Washington Irving to Salman Rushdie to Ali Smith. Let the old city stimulate your writing with its winding streets, Moorish history, and evocative landscapes. Or, indulge in delicious Andalucían cuisine and traditional Arab baths. Work with world-renowned authors on your manuscript, or look to the beauty and warmth of Granada to inspire all-new projects.  Faculty includes Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), Diana Norma Szokolyai (poetry, nonfiction), Jessica Reidy (fiction, poetry) and Elissa Lewis (yoga, meditation).  If you’d like to join us in Granada, please apply online at cww.submittable.com by April 20, 2015.

We hope you are all as excited for our 2015 events as we are. If you have any questions about our upcoming retreats, please view the pages linked above. If you have any questions we may not have answered, you can email us at info@cambridgewritersworkshop.org, and for inquiries, please email the CWW Directors, Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai, at directors@cambridgewritersworkshop.org.  You can also follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter for more information and updates on any of these events. We look forward to making 2015 a year full of creativity, writing, and renewal, so join us as we make 2015 rock!

– Alex Carrigan & Rita Banerjee

Cambridge Writers’ Workshop #NaNoWriMo 2014 Writing Challenge!!

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nanowrimoNovember is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and our CWW staff is up for an exciting writing challenge! We have the entire month of November to write draft, sketch, and complete the first versions of our novels.  The goal is to get to over 50,000 words by November 30.  We at the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop are working on our novel projects a little bit everday.  For food for thought and writing inspiration, we’re turning into @NaNoWriMo, @NaNoWordSprints, and all the amazing writers participating in #NaNoWriMo on Twitter!  Here’s what our staff members are doing and our current word counts:

Rita Banerjee:

“I am currently working on my first novel project, a dystopian futuristic novel, which focuses on the trials and tribulations of a young female anti-hero, Mel Cassin. Her life is routine and mundane until one day her university-age brother, Lou, goes missing. This is the second person in her life who has disappeared. The first was her mother, who vanished from the Cassin family home when Mel was just a girl. Her younger brother, Lou, suspicious of the government’s involvement in the disappearance of his mother, attempted to join protests for social reform in college. It is in this moment of youthful rebellion, that Lou, too, disappears from sight, and Mel must find out what has happened to her mother and her brother, in order to understand the veils which disguise the machinations of her own government, the import of her own family and past, and the potential and ambiguity of her own individual agency.” – RB, Word Count as of 11/11: 8,568 Words

Diana Norma Szokolyai

“I am working on a novel called Last Gypsy in Paris.  Set in present day Paris, Lavinia is a teenage, Romani girl who works as an aerialist in her family’s “Old Gypsy Circus” traveling act.  She is torn between the world of the gadjé (non Gypsies) when, while attending French school, she develops passions for literature and a French boy, Julien.  Julien comes from an elitist, right wing French family who want to eradicate Gypsies from France, while Mateo, Lavinia’s father, struggles to keep the old Romani traditions alive in his family by protecting everyone he loves from the world of the gadjé.  When tragedy strikes the family circus, Lavinia must make difficult choices about her future that will ultimately effect her identity.  She is guided by her close friends Elsa, Fisco, Popo the parrot, and Mermeyí, her wise grandmother, who is a fortune teller. – DNS, Word Count as of 11/11: 9,009 Words

Alex Carrigan:

“I’m trying something really strange this month and attempting to write a Young Adult book. I know, it’s crazy. I never see YA about nerdy characters, so I’m making the main characters all members of a high school anime club. It’s a first person story from the perspective of Ashley, a high school junior and active member of the club. Her club is trying to sell anime goods at an upcoming anime convention, and Ashley is tasked to make a dating simulator video game for the table. When her best friend starts dating another guy in the club, Ashley tries to follow them on dates to use for inspiration, while also trying to push other romantic pairings around her in hopes of being able to use it for the club. Unfortunately, this does lead to some issues and causes some things to get crazy when Ashley starts to get too into those around her. I’m excited for the project since I get to make a fleshed out character with Ashley and really try to write from the perspective of an outspoken nerdy teenage girl. Plus, as an anime fan, I get to reference tons of the stuff in the story, which is always fun.” -AC, Word Count as of 11/11: 13,855 words

Jessica Reidy:

“I’m working on my novel, currently titled Zenith, about Coco, a half Romani (Gypsy) burlesque dancer and fortune teller at a Parisian circus who reluctantly becomes a Nazi hunter. Wanting clarity and guidance and without anyone else to turn to, Coco reads her own tarot cards, a forbidden act that always obscures the truth with the seeker’s own fears and desires. Coco’s target is her own uncle, Botho, a Romani man who turned traitor and set thousands of Roma to the gas chambers. And yet, Botho is the same man who spared Coco and her estranged mother, Mina, from the concentration camps, but abused his position to torture them both. While Coco makes her life at the strange and beautiful circus, Mina is living out her days in a mental institution, and keeping her identity as the famed Romani poet exiled from her community under wraps. But when Mina’s journals and her book of poetry appear on Coco’s doorstep, Coco discovers brutal family secrets and finds that she is not the only hunter in her family. Her choice between family or justice throws her own life in the balance while her desires and fears run wild among the circus.” –JR, Word Count as of 11/11: approximately 35,000 words

Megan Tilley:

“For NaNoWriMo this year, I’m working on a YA fantasy novel about the personification of Death and his familiar, a girl named Mira. It follows Mira as she gets accustomed to being Death’s familiar and the complications that come with that, including the struggle with her self identity and personal freedom, while also balancing a budding romance with her childhood friend. Urban fantasy and magical realism are my favorite genres, and I’m really excited to explore the world I’m making! I’m thrilled to be able to work with a unique character like the personification of Death, as well as the internal struggle Mira has to deal with.” – MT, Word Count as of 11/11: 24,574 words

August 20 – Bon Voyage, Mes Amis!

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August 20 marked the very last day of the 2014 Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Yoga & Writing Retreat at the Château de Verderonne.  The day started early for me at 5:30 am with me bidding adieu to our wonderful and talented intern, Meghan Tilley, as she when to catch her flight at Charles de Gaulle Airport.  By 8 am, all of our terrific writers, artists, and yoga-philes sat down at the great table in the Château de Verderonne hunting lodge to have one last breakfast together.  Our writers would be returning home to the US, the Philippines, the UK, and Germany after this all-too-short and productive retreat.  Breakfast was bittersweet as we all said our fond farewells, exchanged emails, and promised to keep in touch with our writing partners and workshop groups.  We chose November 20 as our first post-retreat rendez-vous date when all of our 2014 retreat participants would meet via Skype to exchange their writing and update us on the projects we had begun at the Château de Verderonne.  Participants began to make their way to the train station and airport around 11 am.  Some writers would be staying a few days extra in Paris while others would do a short tour of Europe before they returned home.

After 11 am, only a few of the participants and instructors remained at the Château de Verderonne.  We thanked Gina & Jessica for their incredibility generosity and fierceness of spirit, which brought a of light and great humor to the retreat.  We walked around the blooming flower gardens and lush green estates of the château one more time together, remembered our meetings on the trampoline, the incredible meals we had made together, and all the writing that was produced on the trip.  We made a pact to not only keep in touch, but to keep each other posted on our creative projects, and to most of all, keep on writing.  The creative energy at the end of the trip was tangible.  And after spending the afternoon working on our own writing and art, Norma, Elissa, and I joined Monsieur and Madame Marié de l’Isle for one last dinner at the château.  Over apéritifs and a wonderful home-cooked meal, we spoke of our favorite French authors and thinkers, the luminaries who had graced the Château de Verderonne, and the exciting plans for the château’s future.

Returning to our rooms late in the evening when the fog and mist had settled over the château’s gardens, we enjoyed one last midnight discussion together, and then rested for the next day we would be heading off to Paris!  In Paris, we met up with Jessica and Antonia Alexandra Klimenko, a celebrated member of SpokenWord Paris and one of the most renowned English-language poets currently living in Paris.  Together, we enjoyed a to-die-for Morrocan meal complete with mouth-watering tajines, delicious couscous, and hot mint tea at La Baracka in Paris.  A black cat with green eyes watched us overhead as we enjoyed our dinner together.  Then we visited L’altelier Charonne which was featuring Jazz Manouche and Tzigane music.  Two of the musicians were of Roma descent and the third was Italian, and together they blended French classical music styles, bossa nova, and traditional Gypsy music themes together beautifully.  After the concert, Jess and Norma had a chance to chat with the Roma musicians as well.

After the amazing concert, we noticed an unmarked building with gorgeous electric lights, dark curtains, and an assortment of odd mid-century modern furniture inside.  The place was actually a tavern called Bar Sans Nom (A Bar With No Name), and as the owner later described it to us, the place purposefully lacked a marquee sign and any exterior indication that it was a bar at all.  In this way, the tavern could be magical.  Hard to spot the first time, and even harder to find the second.  The dark velvet walls seemed to invite.  And sitting there in the middle of old television sets, typewriters, pianofortes, and hard-metal fans, it was easy to wonder if this place was really real, or rather, if it was something we had imagined to entertain one last evening together.

–  Rita Banerjee, Cambridge Writers’ Workshop’s Creative Director

August 11 – Cambridge Writers’ Workshop in Paris!

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Our crepe maker extraordinaire, John
In Paris!
Cafe cat
Hot chocolate!
Art in the flea market
Dinner in Paris!
Megan trying to be culinarily adventurous
Rita and Elissa

M. Marié drove us to the Liancourt-Rantigny station early in the morning, while the fog still clung to the base of the trees. We were on our way to Paris, city of lights, for a day of exploration and inspiration.

The train ride rattled by in a green blur of passing landscape until we arrived in Paris. The gardens of the Medici palace are swarming with people soaking in the sun after a recent spat of rain, relaxed in green metal chairs on the carefully manicured gravel walkways. Children pushed colorful toy yachts across a fountain, yelling to each other and their parents as the boats skimmed across the water.

We made out way to a small crepe stand outside the garden, enjoying the hot food prepared by John, who showed us his favorite trick over and over again – cutting a banana furiously while staring us in the eye, never missing or making a mistake. After enjoying our food, we went to a cafe for drinks and a character sketch writing exercise. The cafe cat watched the passersby and us with mild curiosity, tolerating pets and attention.

From there, the flea market was an explosion of colors and accents, men with knockoff designer sunglasses following crowds headed towards the stalls with, pardon! pardon! Clothes printed with slightly incorrect English slogans hung in stalls next to assortments of hookah pipes and cheap jewelry. Inside, antique furniture competed for attention – glass tables supported by golden scorpions, lacquered benches, delicate side tables with spindled legs, and fainting couches were set up in mock arrangements, no seat please printed on papers propped on the couches and chairs.

Upstairs, books with crumbling spines and magazines housed in plastic slips competed on rickety tables and bookshelves. Clothing hung in colored rows, shop keepers chatting to each other, and to the artists sandwiched between them.

After the market, we headed back into the heart of Paris to eat dinner at Les Fêtes Galantes. The restaurant only held a few tables, and we were greeted by the wife of the chef. The walls were plastered in pictures and notes left by guests, and one wall even held a few sets of lingerie. The food was unbelievable and perfectly cooked – an excellent way to end a day in Paris.

– Megan Tilley, CWW Editing & Communications Intern