POETRY: The Healing Art

Come share the life-changing healing mystery of poetry, one way of both finding and making meaning in our lives. We will consider several poems. You will have time to write in response and share your work with the group.

LINDA LEEDY SCHNEIDER, a psychotherapist in private practice and poetry mentor who was awarded The Contemporary American Poetry Prize by Chicago Poetry, has written six collections of poetry and edited two poetry anthologies, Poems From 84th Street and Mentor’s Bouquet. Linda founded and leads The Manhattan Writing Workshop.

Writing in a Broken World

**There are 3 workshops offered on different dates.  All workshops are the same.  You only need to register for one of the dates**

Our world is broken. We need to reach out to repair the part of the world close to us. The workshop will have three parts:

1. Speak and bear witness (Rainer Maria Rilke, Etty Hillesum, Martin Luther King, Clarissa Pinkola Estes)
2. Journal to uncover our voice (CG Jung, Thomas Merton, Marion Woodman)
3. Write and bear witness (Terry Tempest Williams, Naomi Shihab Nye)

Susan Tiberghien, author of five memoirs and two writing books: One Year to a Writing Life and Writing Toward Wholeness, teaches at CGJung Societies, IWWG, Geneva Writers Group, and at writers’ centers and conferences in America and Europe. Active in International PEN, she lives in Geneva, Switzerland.

Mindful Editing for Reluctant Revisers

You will learn how to edit your own writing with greater awareness and focus. You will learn some basic English concepts, guidelines, and skills you can apply for clear, correct, and meaningful writing. By learning to pay attention to the basics, you will be able to get a few more things right before you seek (and pay for!) professional editorial assistance. This class offers an editorial mindset and practical tools to help you see your own writing in a new way.

Andi Penner, an accomplished writer and formerly an English professor and technical editor, is now retired and living the writing life in New Mexico where she is completing a memoir for publication. She has published three books of poetry and writes In Our Own Ink, a Substack newsletter.

Writing Personal Stories that Matter

Annie Dillard once said, “You have to take pains not to hang on the reader’s arms, like a drunk, and say ‘And then I did this and it was so interesting.’ ” What is it, exactly, that makes personal narrative truly engaging? Working together we will be looking at how to find the kernel, the image or concept at the heart of your story. From this kernel, we will explore and apply several techniques useful for writing your openings, middles, and closings. Short submissions of no more than one page are invited but not required. This workshop provides a roadmap for both you and your readers, guideposts to keep them reading and you writing.

Former board chair of the International Women’s Writing Guild, Judith Huge has taught for many Guild summer conferences . For the past ten years, she has conducted writing workshops for the OLLI Program at the University of South Florida. Published internationally in Traveler’s Tales, she is co-author of 101 Ways You Can Help, a guide for providing thoughtful support to those who are grieving.

Containing Time: I’m Still Here

Containing Time: I’m Still Here. In advance, please read Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Spring and Fall.” We will write poems exploring, for each us, time’s transience.

Myra Shapiro returned to New York City after forty-five years in Georgia and Tennessee where she worked as a teacher and librarian and, with her husband, raised two daughters.She is the author of four books of poems, most recently Crossing the Street to Paradis, and a memoir. Her poems have appeared in many periodicals and anthologies, including the Best American Poetry. She serves on the Board of Poet’s House.

Writing in a Broken World

**There are 3 workshops offered on different dates.  All workshops are the same.  You only need to register for one of the dates**

Our world is broken. We need to reach out to repair the part of the world close to us. The workshop will have three parts:

1. Speak and bear witness (Rainer Maria Rilke, Etty Hillesum, Martin Luther King, Clarissa Pinkola Estes)
2. Journal to uncover our voice (CG Jung, Thomas Merton, Marion Woodman)
3. Write and bear witness (Terry Tempest Williams, Naomi Shihab Nye)

Susan Tiberghien, author of five memoirs and two writing books: One Year to a Writing Life and Writing Toward Wholeness, teaches at CGJung Societies, IWWG, Geneva Writers Group, and at writers’ centers and conferences in America and Europe. Active in International PEN, she lives in Geneva, Switzerland.

Writing Divine Presence

How, in a darkening world, can we locate, recognize, remember, and experience divine presence? Helping us answer that perennial question is one of the ancient powers and functions of writing. Sacred stories, prayers, myths, visions, invocations, prophecies, hymns, epiphanies in poetry and prose, descriptions of moments when life brims with what is beyond us, even complaints about the silence or absence of divinity – all are ways we can write our way, and help others read their ways, toward divine presence. In this class, we will examine a few examples of these kinds of writing, and do exercises to help us practice, build on, and leap beyond them.

Joy Ladin has published eleven books of poetry, including her latest collection, Family; National Jewish Book Award winner The Book of Anna; and Lambda Literary Award finalists Transmigration and Impersonation. She has also published three books of creative non-fiction: Once Out of Nature: Selected Essays on the Transformation of Gender; National Jewish Book Award finalist Through the Door of Life; and Lambda Literary and Triangle Award finalist, The Soul of the Stranger.

Praise Poems: Odes, Elegies and Litanies, a Generative Workshop

We will explore odes, elegies and litanies by other poets and will have time to generate our own poems.

Leslie B. Neustadt is a retired attorney, and a poet and collage artist. She has published two full length poetry collections, Bearing Fruit: A Poetic Journey (2014, Spirit Wind Studios), and The Sustenance of Stars (2024, Kelsay Books). Her poems have been published in numerous anthologies and literary journals. She hosted dozens of online free writing workshops for the Guild during the pandemic, continues to be involved in programing, and has served on the Guild’s Board of Directors.

Writing What You've Never Had the Courage to

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” —Muriel Rukeyser
In writing memoir about our lives, women are writing what we know, not what we are allowed to know or expected to know, or, above all, permitted to tell. We will inevitably be criticized.
We often fear being judged if we put our truth on the page. We fear being criticized for being too angry, too vulnerable, too revealing, too sad. We’re told to stay small, not to take up too much space and, above all, to be likable, nice, straight, able-bodied, and mentally sane.
This workshop is an opportunity to reveal your secrets to yourself and others. Write about what you never had the courage to write, what you never have wanted others to know about you. Put your secrets on the page and you can omit and edit later. Allow yourself to reveal your innermost thoughts, secrets, experiences, feelings because we have all had them. Carolyn Heilbrun writes: “Women are telling their stories to publicly tell other women what their lives have been like.” The purpose of art is to change the conversation.
We will look at excerpts from memoirists who have had the courage to put their truth on the page about such topics as sexual abuse, desire, shame, dealing with family secrets: Chanel Miller, Katherine Harrison, Mary Karr, Jeanette Walls, Honor Moore
During the workshop, you will have an opportunity to write your truth and share it in the chat if you wish.

Maureen Murdock, Ph.D. is the author of her new book Mythmaking: Self-Discovery and the Timeless Art of Memoir and the author of the best-selling book, The Heroine’s Journey translated into 23 languages. Murdock teaches a merry band of memoirists in Santa Barbara and is also author of Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory; Fathers’ Daughters; Spinning Inward: Using Guided Imagery with Children; and The Heroine’s Journey Workbook. www.maureenmurdock.com.

"Sweet Dreams, Precious Friend": A Meditation & Freewriting Circle to Honor the Guild

"Sweet Dreams, Precious Friend": A Meditation & Freewriting Circle to Honor the Guild

On December 30, the IWWG Board sent a beautiful and heartbreaking email to announce the end of the Guild’s programming in January, 2026. As the Board stated, the IWWG is a living organism, and this meditation and freewriting circle, “Sweet Dreams, Precious Friend,” is a way to process the news and honor the Guild and its gifts that we carry forward.

What should you have on hand for the workshop?
Recommended:
a cushion for your chair so your hips can be slightly above your knees when you meditate OR your meditation cushion
your journal and something to write with
a cup or tea or a glass of wine or other beverage to toast the Guild at the end of the circle

Optional:
photographs, handouts, your journals, “IWWG swag,” or other mementos from Guild events and conferences

Our time together will flow like this:
welcome
Lisa guides a 3-minute meditation
freewrite off prompts chosen to guide us into reflecting on how the Guild has fed us
share in small groups in breakout rooms
gather again as the whole group and hear a few highlights from the breakout rooms
Lisa guides a 3-minute meditation
freewrite off prompts chosen to guide us into dreaming our individual and collective futures as women writers in the world at this time
share in small groups in breakout rooms
gather again in the main room and take a few breaths together

To conclude, everyone in the circle has a chance to share one line about their past and/or ongoing relationship with the Guild, and we will all toast with our cup of tea or glass of wine.

If anyone is interested, we can take 30 minutes or so at the end of the formal circle for more casual socializing, reminiscing, and dreaming

Lisa Freedman, author, activist, and professor, has been an active member of and instructor for the IWWG since 1988. Her online community, Breathe/Read/Write, blends meditation and freewriting to cultivate heartfelt expression. She’s certified by Dharma Moon/Tibet House as a meditation instructor. See her work in Satya, the NY Times, and elsewhere.