events

The Sun in California

Into the Fire: The Sun Celebrates Personal Writing
Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California
October 30 – November 01, 2009

Program Description

Into the Fire
The Sun Magazine Celebrates Personal Writing

Is it possible to write about ourselves in a way that touches others and reminds them of our fundamental connectedness? The answer is yes, if we’re willing to take a leap — with all our passion, fear, and longing — into the fire. And that fire is not just a metaphor. It’s as real as our own mysterious existence; as real as a painful moment that has broken, and maybe opened, our hearts.

For thirty-five years, The Sun has published the kind of brave, revealing writing that lives up to the magazine’s motto, a line from concentration-camp-survivor Viktor Frankl: “What is to give light must endure burning.” We invite you to join Sun readers, authors, and staff — including editor and publisher Sy Safransky — for a weekend of investigating our lives through the written word. The Sun will come to life as the retreat mirrors the magazine’s format, beginning with introductions and moving on to discussions of essays, fiction, and poems with their authors, who will lead exercises geared to bring forth similar elements in your own writing. We’ll give you a glimpse behind the scenes into The Sun’s publishing and editing process in discussions with staff and authors. Readers Write–style writing sessions will help get your pen moving. (You don’t have to be a writer to attend these sessions. Our aim is simply to create a space in which people can tell their stories from the heart.) The weekend will conclude with Sy Safransky reading from his Notebook and all of us sharing our favorite quotations at a Sunbeams open mic.

Of course, the best part of a Sun gathering is getting to meet everyone: staff, writers, and fellow Sun enthusiasts — people who love the magazine and share its compassionate, unflinching view of the world. We hope you’ll join us.

A large enrollment is expected; we recommend registering early. We’ll post a complete program and list of materials to bring here soon.

Authors Scheduled To Appear

Gillian Kendall is a freelance writer, a reporter, and a manuscript reader for The Sun. A high-school dropout with a Ph.D., she believes that good writing comes from loose living and tight language. Travel, odd passions, and a misspent youth help, too. She lives in Australia and is the author of two books: How I Became a Human Being: A Disabled Man's Quest for Independence (coauthored with Mark O’Brien) and Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet: On a Slow Boat from Shanghai to Texas. (Gillian will teach a five-day writing workshop at Esalen on November 15–20. Click here for details.)

Frances Lefkowitz (www.franceslefkowitz.net) is a writer and editor whose memoir How To Have Not will be published this fall. Her fiction, personal essays, and articles have appeared in Glimmer Train Stories, Poets & Writers, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Health. She is a native San Franciscan and avid surfer. Her parents met in Big Sur in 1959.

Alison Luterman is a poet, essayist, playwright, and theatrical improviser who lives in Oakland, California. She teaches creative writing through the Writing Salon and California Poets in the Schools. Her book of poems The Largest Possible Life was published by Cleveland State University Poetry Center. Her second book, See How We Almost Fly, will be published by Pearl Editions in October 2009.

Sy Safransky is editor and publisher of The Sun.

Sparrow’s poems have appeared in the New Yorker and the New York Times, and he’s the author of America: A Prophecy (Soft Skull Press). He lives in Teaneck, New Jersey, with his wife and daughter.

Cary Tennis writes the “Since You Asked” advice column for Salon.com and conducts writing workshops and retreats to help people find their voice and speak their truth.

Theresa Williams teaches literature and creative writing at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Her novel, The Secret of Hurricanes, was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize; her short fiction has won a grant from the Ohio Arts Council and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Schedule of Events

Friday

Registration, 4–6 p.m.
Dinner, 6–7:30 p.m.
Orientation for first-time Esalen visitors, 7:45 p.m.

Opening Session, Dance Dome, 8:30–10:30 p.m.

Welcome and Orientation
Contributors Notes (introductions, please see what to bring)

Over the Transom (panel discussion)
Panelists: Gillian Kendall, Frances Lefkowitz, Alison Luterman, Tim McKee, Seth Mirsky, Sy Safransky, Luc Saunders, Sparrow, Cary Tennis, Theresa Williams
Moderated by Angela Winter
We’ll describe the journey of a submission from receipt to response to publication. We’ll talk about our editorial review process as well as what The Sun looks for in a submission and what makes a manuscript stand out. Authors will share their own perspectives: When did they first submit work to The Sun? How did they approach revising their work before submission? How long did it take to be published? Why do they continue to send work? What do they like or dislike about being in The Sun? What makes it unique?

Saturday

Breakfast, 8:30–9:45 a.m.

Workshop Session I, 10 a.m.–12 p.m. (choose one of the following to attend)

Avoiding Saccharine, or How Not to Gaze at Your Navel
Frances Lefkowitz (Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories)
How can we write about ourselves while avoiding self-indulgence, nostalgia, and sentimentality? The secret is developing a balance between empathy and detachment. Using her essay “No Camping on City Streets” [November 2006], Frances will lead a discussion and exercises to help participants dig deeper, find new perspective on their own lives, and convey the universal in the personal.

Pardon My [Taboo]
Cary Tennis (Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories)
People intent on self-discovery must be free to speak of absolutely anything. Pat Schneider, founder of the Amherst Writers and Artists workshop method and author of Writing Alone and with Others, taught Cary a powerful exercise that releases the energy of the repressed and forbidden. Together we will list taboo ideas, words, actions, and thoughts; then we will break the chains of silence!

From List to Literature
Gillian Kendall (Fiction)
Probably the simplest thing in the world to write is a list: we make them daily (or hourly). But lists have the potential to grow, and even explode outside the lines, and they may strengthen many short stories, including Gillian’s “Dr. Harris’s Residence” [September 1999]. Gillian will guide our group in list making (and might be persuaded to share highlights from her collection of old grocery lists).

The Scariest Things about Adolescence
Theresa Williams (Fiction)
Theresa Williams’s story “Roses” [January 2005] is about two teenage girls navigating adolescent sexuality and finding the path fraught with hazards. A symbol of the girls’ terror is the rabbit’s foot. This workshop will focus on “coming-of-age” stories and finding the right event and detail to write about.

Twenty Little Poetry Projects
Alison Luterman (Poetry)
How do poets take those fantastic, gravity-defying leaps of imagination — and take the reader with them? Alison will read her poem “Morning in the Mission: Grandpop Comes to Visit” [August 1996] and lead us through a complex, playful exercise designed to get us out of our rut and into a more whimsical relationship with language and logic. Come prepared to write.

Writing about God
Sparrow (Poetry)
Whether we conceive of the Divine as a whisper, a king, or an ivy-clad woman, most of us fear writing about this mystic presence. Even nonbelievers (or semibelievers) are welcome to this frank exploration of faith in literature by Sparrow, author of “My God Journal” [August 2008].

Readers Write
Hosted by Tim McKee, managing editor

Individual meetings with Sy Safransky

Lunch, 12:30–2:45 p.m.
followed by time on your own

Workshop Session II, 3–4:30 p.m. (choose one of the following to attend)

Writing before Understanding
Frances Lefkowitz (Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories)
Is it necessary to know what you are writing about before you start? Frances will make a case for following intuition and emotion in early drafts, and adding logic and analysis later. Her essay “Saturn Is the Biggest Planet on Earth” [September 2007] will provide a springboard for
discussion of the writing process. We’ll generate a first draft, then use an after-the-fact outline to discover what our own story is about.

Dear Stranger
Cary Tennis (Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories)
Writers often write to a particular individual, as this tends to temper our voice. Our own experience, recounted simply, peer to peer, is often more compelling than what we conjure when we imagine ourselves as writers addressing a vast unknown audience. In this exercise, we will discuss Cary’s essay “Since You Asked” [January 2009], then write letters to people we know or do not know, and bear witness to the emotions and ideas that arise as we do so.

Readers Rewrite
Gillian Kendall (Fiction)
Even stories with an apparently spontaneous and informal tone have benefited from revision and/or editing. Gillian will discuss word choices and line edits in her story “Drama” [June 1997] and guide participants through exacting rewriting techniques.

The Night-Sea Journey
Theresa Williams (Fiction)
This is another term for a “dark night of the soul.” In Theresa Williams’s story “The Falls” [July 2005], Nora Walker finds her life without meaning, shape, or direction. A trip to Niagara Falls culminates in an unexpected moment of transcendence. This workshop will help participants write about the Night-Sea Journey and bring a character one step toward wholeness.

Speech Music
Alison Luterman (Poetry)
How do we give our lines a rhythmic shape and heightened impact while maintaining the feel of ordinary speech? Using her poem “Smashing the Plates” [September 2004] Alison will look at ways to marry ordinary and extraordinary language, and to use onomatopoeia, alliteration, internal rhyme, assonance, and consonance to build a compelling soundscape.

Minimalism and You
Sparrow (Poetry)
“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter,” Blaise Pascal famously remarked. The same is true of poems. Sparrow will reveal the secret of crafting the “American haiku” and discuss how he employed this method when writing “Eight Love Poems” [June 2007].

Readers Write
Hosted by Krista Bremer, associate publisher

Individual meetings with Sy Safransky

Workshop Session III, 4:45–6:15 p.m. (choose one of the following to attend)

Speaking What Matters
Cary Tennis (Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories)
If you could have the rapt attention of everyone on earth for five minutes, what would you say? It might be something deeply personal, or scientific and universal. It might be simple or complex. Whatever it is, our choice will reveal something about our most sacred beliefs, as we attempt to express them succinctly to an imaginary audience of billions.

Lost People, Found Stories
Gillian Kendall (Fiction)
Someone has said that all fiction results from loss. That’s probably not true, but loss of a friendship in part inspired Gillian’s “In Loco Parentis” [October 1999]. She will lead participants in drafting character sketches based on real-life people who are lost, dead, or missing in action.

Bringing Real Work to Poetry
Alison Luterman (Poetry)
This workshop is for cooks, gardeners, parents, healthcare providers, snow shovellers, tree huggers, and anyone else who wishes to describe the sensations, joys, pains, and meanings of work — and not just work you get paid for. Using her poem “Massage Therapist” [October 2005] as an example, Alison will show us how to bring those immediate, physical experiences into our poems.

Writing for Utopia
Sparrow (Poetry)
How do we imagine a fair and luscious human society? And how do we reveal that insight to our readers? Utopia is almost never discussed today, and our nation is poorer for it. Using his essay “Buy One, Get One Free” [December 2008] as a model, five-time Presidential candidate Sparrow will explore literary roads to social perfection.

Readers Write
Hosted by Luc Saunders, editorial associate, and Seth Mirsky, proofreader

Individual meetings with Sy Safransky

Dinner, 6:30–7:45 p.m.

Workshop Session IV, 8–9:30 p.m. (choose one of the following to attend)

Tell and Show
Frances Lefkowitz (Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories)
Common writing wisdom admonishes students to “show, don’t tell” — in other words, to use concrete details and images rather than explanations to get your point across. That’s not always the best policy, says Frances, who mixes the two techniques in her essay on poverty and education, “The Gifted Classes” [January 2003]. She’ll discuss the pros and cons of explanations vs. details, scenes, and other fictionlike techniques, and help us discover the right balance between the two.

Readers Rewrite
Gillian Kendall (Fiction)
Even stories with an apparently spontaneous and informal tone have benefited from revision and/or editing. Gillian will discuss word choices and line edits in her story “Sleepwalking to My Sister” [February 1995] and guide participants through exacting rewriting techniques.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Complicated Figure
Alison Luterman (Poetry)
Bring your complex, difficult ideas to this workshop and see them expand and grow. Prepare to make leaps, jump-cut, ramble, juxtapose, and inquire. Alison will talk about “Saddam Hussein Is Writing Poetry in Solitary Confinement” [December 2006], which was originally written as an homage to Wallace Stevens’s “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”

Filling the Dog Bowl, or How to Write about Pets
Sparrow (Poetry)
Writing about pets is a treacherous test. How do we convey our love of an animal without cliché? What is unique about our particular hamster? Working with his own recent essay “Bananacake” [February 2009], Sparrow (himself named after an animal) will offer useful approaches.

Readers Write
Hosted by Angela Winter, associate publisher

Individual meetings with Sy Safransky

Sunday

Breakfast, 8–9 a.m.

Digging the Well, Dance Dome, 9:15–10 a.m.
Panelists: Krista Bremer, Gillian Kendall, Frances Lefkowitz, Alison Luterman, Sy Safransky, Sparrow, Cary Tennis, and Theresa Williams
Moderated by Angela Winter
The authors will discuss their individual writing practices and share ideas for stimulating creativity and inspiration or just developing the discipline to sit down with pen and paper or laptop. What methods work best for getting started and staying the course? How can you avoid distraction and manage your time?

Sy Safransky’s Notebook, Dance Dome, 10:00–10:45 a.m.
Sy will read from his Notebook, talk about his writing practice, and discuss how he approaches revising his own work versus the writing of magazine contributors. He’ll discuss the evolution of his writing as well as The Sun as a magazine, and he’ll answer your questions.

Sunbeams Open Mic and Closing Session, Dance Dome, 11:00 a.m.–12 p.m.
Participants are invited to bring their favorite quotations to read aloud. Everyone will get to read a quote or two, time permitting. Then we’ll wrap up and make our goodbyes.

Brunch, 12:15–1:30 p.m.

Departure

Location

Esalen Institute, 55000 Highway One, Big Sur, CA 93920, (831) 667-3005, info@esalen.org.

Esalen is situated on twenty-seven acres of spectacular Big Sur coastline with the Santa Lucia Mountains rising sharply behind. The institute is known for its blend of Eastern and Western philosophies, and its offerings include access to natural hot springs, a massage area, and a swimming pool. (Swimsuits are optional and nudity is common in these areas.)

Registration and Cost

Cost: Esalen’s weekend cost is based on the type of lodging you select; it includes tuition, meals, and accommodations. For details, visit Esalen’s Reservation Information page.

Registration: Call Esalen at (831) 667-3005, or register online.

What To Bring

Please bring the following items with you to Esalen:

A notebook or journal in which to write.
Your favorite pen or pencil.
Your bio written in the form of a contributor’s note — 50 words maximum. See The Sun’s inside front cover for examples. Since we’re all contributors for the weekend, we’ll read our notes aloud during the introductions on Friday night.

To help you get started, here’s what we ask Sun contributors to consider as they write their notes:

In addition to the usual information — where you live, your occupation, any previous publications — tell us something unique about you. What are your hobbies, pet projects, bad habits? What are you most proud of, or most embarrassed by? Is there something special about where you live, or with whom you live? Or think of one or two things about yourself that are not true of anyone else you know, and tell us what they are.

Please note: The 50-word limit is strict.
One or more of your favorite quotations spoken or written by someone else. We’ll end the weekend with a Sunbeams open mic. Everyone will get to read a quote or two, time permitting.
Copies of the magazine selections that will be featured in the workshops. You can read, download, and print the selections here.
Esalen recommends that you bring: a flashlight, ear plugs, comfortable shoes, an alarm clock, and casual, layered clothes for 40-70 degree weather.

Praise from Past Participants

“That the sensitivity and subtle power of The Sun could be personified in a group workshop was a revelation.”

J.L.

“I had no real expectations, but lots of anxiety as the retreat approached: fear that I’d feel like an imposter, that I wouldn’t fit in, and worst of all, that my childhood dream of being a writer would be demolished by reality. From my first meeting with the other participants, I knew it was going to be OK. There we were: people from all over the country; all wannabe writers, all in love with The Sun. From that moment on, I was home free.”

E.R.

“Thank you for a much-needed dose of inspiration!”

D.M.

“I was amazed by the strong emotional connections I made with others in such a short period of time.”

N.F.

“What I discovered is that writers are people with feelings of inadequacy, of tenderness and rage — just like everyone else. And what struck my heart was the willingness of retreat participants and leaders to be vulnerable and raw; the willingness to pull out the trembling, tangled response to one’s life and lay it onto paper; the willingness to be seen.”

S.T.

“I especially liked how the participants weren’t all writers or all readers but a delightful cross section of interesting people who take pleasure in The Sun as I do.”

B.L.

“The authors were not just wonderful writers but effective facilitators and leaders. And we were kept writing and listening, which is exactly what I wanted and needed. The retreat gave me the jump-start I was hoping for.”

C.R.

“I’m a sensitive-artist type, and the academic workshops I’ve attended in the past have consistently been pretty traumatic experiences. My writing output actually declined as a result of those workshops. When I left The Sun’s retreat, I felt excited and ready to write more.”

K.H.

“To say that the workshop leaders, including Sy Safransky, were ‘approachable’ would be a gross understatement. Whether it was during the workshops or at mealtime, these incredible people talked with us, answered our questions, even asked us questions. Their generosity, their humility, and their humanity left me in awe. I have never been at a gathering with so many kindhearted and genuine people. Each conversation was sincere, and each small group discussion insightful. I smiled a lot, I laughed a lot, and a tear found its way out of my eye, too.”

T.K.