Trust and Travel (2024)

31/10/2024

In celebration of the time when the veil between our worlds is gossamer thin. These poems speak to the natural world, the call and exchange between here and there, the ancestral longing. 🕯️👻

If you’re feeling the tug; write a ghost story or a letter to someone on the other side.

28/10/2024

The Mexico Writer’s Retreat, February 6-10 ☀️
What can we learn from stillness, from taking a moment to see ourselves clearly, ask questions, and excavate our lives for stories? We will deep dive into our personal narratives, challenging you to think deeper, expand your creativity, and help shape the course of your writing life.

If you hear the call—the exciting and unnerving need to be there—if you want to find your way back to writing, navigate your story, or simply find the words to call yourself a writer and claim it, come join us.
Find us on the pristine shores of in an oceanside home where we will gaze at the sea as we practice yoga, nourish our bodies with incredible food, and, of course, write. Every inch of MUSA is a dream— from their bio pool to the baby turtles hatching, the sunsets, the beach walls, and the fresh, fresh food. You will feel that when you are there, you are invited to pause.

AND we will be joined by guest teacher , author of Blue Hour. Not only is she an incredible author, but she is also THE writing coach. Her methods are part mind-reader, part editor, and part empathetic wizard. She has this ability to hear clearly what you want to say and guide you toward it gently but knowingly. She sees your intentions when they are not clear to you and asks the questions that reveal your truth. Learning from her is an experience that will change the way you write and the way you see yourself as a writer.
See you there ☀️

There are too many good things to count. Use code EARLY100 for a discount on your deposit until November 10th. Payment plans are available! Simply make your deposit and reach out to [email protected]

See you there ☀️

25/10/2024

WRITING PROMPT ☀️
We have built entire workshops and dinners around this piece. It has circled in our teachings and minds for years. It feels just as much an invitation as it does a poem. It has legs. It takes you places.

The prompt is to write your own version of this. Use it as a framework but infuse it with your own life and knowing and wanting. Title your piece and add “After Barbara Ras” as a nod to the original work.

The second part is an invitation to share the words below; give us a little of what you’ve got. Sharing your writing is an act of service to others. Gift us some words here or tag us in your stories so we can share them with our community. WRITE. ☀️

24/10/2024

A sustainable, flourishing, and wildly wondrous writing life. Find it in The Practice, our monthly membership that provides you with a live chat for constant community, weekly writing circles for accountability, and monthly craft workshops for growth. Join us today. ☀️

In the coming months:

October
10/27
The Anatomy of Storytelling with Vika
Ever wanted to understand the anatomy of storytelling to improve your writing? In this masterclass, award-winning Ukrainian-American storyteller, speaker, and strategist - ViKA Victoria - will teach you her methodology. Her mission is to make sure you never tell a story the same way again.

November
11/9
Food, Desire, and Memory with Jane Wong
How can writing about food open up evocative spaces of comfort, family, ancestral lineage, memory, shared rituals, and desires? How can writing through and about food strengthen our communities and open up our creative craft? Along with celebrating and exploring vibrant food writing by poets such Naomi Shihab Nye and Lucille Clifton, our session will inspire you with sensory writing prompts and opportunities for feedback, connection, and breaking bread/sharing.

December

12/14
Character and Dialogue with Michael Donkor
Through this session, you’ll get to know what makes your characters tick. We’ll focus on the roles that dialogue and description can play in building believable protagonists. Thinking about what makes your characters’ speech distinctive and establishing ways of describing telling aspects of your characters’ physicality will be at the heart of our work.

January
1/18
Winter Wonder: A Creative Writing Session with Trivarna Hariharan
What if we learnt not to think of winter as a symbol for hiding— but for resting, renewing our energies? Of gathering ourselves before we are ready to take on the day again? In this writing session, we will explore winter not as retreat. But as becoming. Paying attention. Through our writing: we will learn how to reconnect with the blazing centre of our own stillness. We will think about rest as art. Rest as revolution.

24/10/2024

A sustainable, flourishing, and wildly wondrous writing life. Find it in The Practice, our monthly membership that provides you with a live chat for constant community, weekly writing circles for accountability, and monthly craft workshops from some of our favorite writers for growth. Join us today. ☀️

In the coming months:

October
10/27
The Anatomy of Storytelling with Vika

November
11/9
Food, Desire, and Memory with Jane Wong
How can writing about food open up evocative spaces of comfort, family, ancestral lineage, memory, shared rituals, and desires? How can writing through and about food strengthen our communities and open up our creative craft? Along with celebrating and exploring vibrant food writing by poets such Naomi Shihab Nye and Lucille Clifton, our session will inspire you with sensory writing prompts and opportunities for feedback, connection, and breaking bread/sharing.

December

12/14
Character and Dialogue with Michael Donkor
Through this session, you’ll get to know what makes your characters tick. We’ll focus on the roles that dialogue and description can play in building believable protagonists. Thinking about what makes your characters’ speech distinctive and establishing ways of describing telling aspects of your characters’ physicality will be at the heart of our work. Together, we’ll do various pacey writing activities – sometimes responding to other authors’ work – all designed to emotively bring our central characters’ complexities to the fore.

January
1/18
Winter Wonder: A Creative Writing Session with Trivarna Hariharan
What if we learnt not to think of winter as a symbol for hiding— but for resting, renewing our energies? Of gathering ourselves before we are ready to take on the day again? In this writing session, we will explore winter not as retreat. But as becoming. Paying attention.

We will explore who we become when we learn how to wait. Of sitting with temperatures of feelings that may be difficult. Heavy. Through our writing: we will learn how to reconnect with the blazing centre of our own stillness. We will think about rest as art. Rest as revolution.

22/10/2024

Nothing is simple. Everything is infinite. Living in the slipstream. We’re out here doing our best to share the love. Write yourself something beautiful and tape it in the window to remind your mind what we’re reaching for. If that doesn’t work ask your heart to take the wheel.

15/10/2024

WRITING PROMPT!

Hands often carry symbolic meaning. They can represent creation (an artist’s hands), destruction (a fighter’s hands), or connection (holding hands). Use hands you know well to explore themes of power, care, or identity.

For example, your mother’s hands. Your lover’s hands. Your grandmother’s hands.

Perhaps start with: “The quiet rhythm of her fingers tracing invisible patterns on the table spoke louder than her voice ever did.”

07/10/2024

Having a memoir moment lately?

If you’re anything like us, you’ve got at least a few memoirs on your bedside table at all times. This one kept us up at all hours….

“The Many Lives of Mama Love” by is a powerful exploration of redemption and resilience, seen through the eyes of a woman whose tumultuous journey leads her from darkness to light. As a writer, Hardin masterfully weaves her own story of mistakes, motherhood, and transformation, offering readers an intimate view of what it means to rebuild one’s life and reclaim one’s voice amidst the chaos. It’s a narrative that captures the raw, messy truth of human existence while celebrating the power of hope and self-reinvention.

Have you read it? Let us know your thoughts below 👇

05/10/2024

Writers writing ✍️

Is there a better sight?

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03/10/2024

We have so much to say and share but can’t stop thinking about the children and innocent lives lost in imperialist pursuits. In times of war, sometimes all we have left is poetry.

01/10/2024

You have your Lebanon and I have mine.
You have your Lebanon with her problems, and I have my Lebanon with her beauty. You have your Lebanon with all her prejudices and struggles, and I have my Lebanon with all her dreams and securities.
Your Lebanon is a political knot, a national dilemma, a place of conflict and deception. My Lebanon is a place of beauty and dreams of enchanting valleys and splendid mountains. Your Lebanon is inhabited by functionaries, officers, politicians, committees, and factions. My Lebanon is for peasants, shepherds, young boys and girls, parents and poets.
Your Lebanon is empty and fleeting, whereas My Lebanon will endure forever.

- Gibran Kahlil Gibran, “The Eye of the Prophet” 1920

When author, poet, and painter Gibran Khalil Gibran wrote about his Lebanon at the age of thirty-seven, he had been in exile for twelve years. The country he knew was probably long gone, though he would never find that out; he only returned to his native village, Becharre, to be buried there in 1931.

30/09/2024

History will always find you, and wrap you
In its thousand arms.

Joy Harjo, An American Sunrise

25/09/2024

What can we say about this last retreat?

We were tested. We were pushed. While at times it felt like everyone was at a limit, a few moments later the energy would shift and we would turn a new page. To witness people in their process is such a beautiful way to look at your own self.

We mirrored each other in more ways than one. In awe of the work shared, the secrets spilled, to be confided in such tender thoughts is the biggest honor.

Writers came from all over the world, from Pakistan to Hong Hong Kong. The eclipse and the wild forest fires raging around us were no coincidences. We are in a profound moment of transformation, both as humans and as creatives. Everything could be pulled from under us, everything is changing, yet we also have so much to gain.

In this work we honor those that came before us, who paved the way for us to be able to gather in integrity to tell the stories of our lives.

It’s tender times, it’s the best of times.

Eternal gratitude to those who trust us to guide them in the process, to the spaces that hold us, to the hands that feed us.

Thank you .with.fiza and for these gorgeous captures.

This wouldn’t be possible without you. ✨

23/09/2024

WRITING PROMPT
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As the seasons begin to shift, how do our lives follow? Can a change in season propel us to action or are the seasons simply an exterior indication of time? Explore the concept of seasons to inspire change in your characters.
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20/09/2024

We are at the last day of our writer’s retreat in Portugal and cannot fathom how many conversations have happened around this very question. Writing happens in seasons, there’s time to sow and time to reap. Time to ask, research, read, learn, be frustrated, fail... and time to ace it. We always encourage writer’s to meet themselves exactly where they are, to look at the work with kindness and respect, to not wish they were somewhere else. Set realistic goals, and slowly move towards them with compassion. That’s what we do!
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19/09/2024

Here is an author to keep your eye on!! In her 2024 debut short stories collection, ‘Pemi Aguda leads readers through strange, yet grounded stories in a fantasy version of Lagos. Throughout the collection, Ghostroots, Aguda examines how familial histories seep into our being, leaving readers hanging onto every word.
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Aguda received her MFA the from Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan and is a recipient of the O. Henry Prize and numerous others.
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We are excited to read what ‘Pemi Aguda has in store!

photo: IfeOluwa Nihinlola
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16/09/2024

WRITING PROMPT

Rich, sumptuous writing often has a distinctive sense of place. It consumes and transports us to environments we have never been, yet makes us feel like we have always known. Use setting and space to inspire your writing today.

To help hone this sense of place in writing we are hosting a writers workshop on 9/29 at 10am PST. We will explore pieces that use place as a driving force and help strengthen the sense of place in your writing. We would love to see you there!

photo 1: Emile Schultess
photo 2: S.Shaw via
photo 3: San Francisco by Josh Amirthasigh

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15/09/2024

It’s 32 degrees in Lisbon. We are packing our bags and getting ready for the last retreat of the year! Can’t help but already feel the pull towards looking at the world with different eyes. Retreats are such a wonderful opportunity to set your life on the table and really look at it closely. While we have been running this business for over 5 years, we are never not humbled by a retreat or a group.

This year, we have about 8 different nationalities coming together at the Portugal retreat. This means a diversity in perspectives and voices that’s truly an honor to witness.

To be of service and shine a light on others is our life’s work. The beauty we get to witness every time leaves us speechless. Can’t wait to write with all of you!!

Trust and Travel

31/10/2024

28/10/2024

25/10/2024

24/10/2024

24/10/2024

22/10/2024

15/10/2024

07/10/2024

05/10/2024

03/10/2024

01/10/2024

30/09/2024

25/09/2024

23/09/2024

20/09/2024

19/09/2024

16/09/2024

15/09/2024

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