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A month ago, my dear friend Edwina Shaw and I hosted our second ‘Relax & Write’ yoga and writing retreat for women at Evans Head, on the north coast of NSW. We decided to extend the program over three nights rather than two, which made the weekend more relaxed for everyone – especially as we had people travelling from Sydney to attend. Once again the retreat proved a fabulous success. More than half the women who came along last time returned, and it was lovely to reconnect with them and also good to see how their writing and confidence had improved over the past six months. Both the old timers and the new recruits settled in well to the rhythm of each day with yoga and writing workshops interspersed with plenty of time for leisurely breakfasts and lunches, chats, long walks and swims at the beach, or just hanging out on the cabin verandah.

When I think back on the weekend, I realise that relaxing and writing – and being nurtured through yoga, healthy food, friendship, laughter and picnics – is important for a whole host of different reasons. What do I remember? Champagne and candles, the sound of pens scratching across paper, the old-fashioned pleasure of listening to favourite stories, poems and songs at the open mic night, the deliciousness of Edwina’s roasted walnuts with ice cream and cheesecake, morning light shining through stained glass windows in the yoga studio, the stories behind our collages, the glorious temperature of the ocean, and women reading out extraordinary stories they’d written in the writing workshops – stories I’d wished I’d written myself.

When I told them so, the women kept saying, ‘But I’m not really a writer.’

Actually, you are.

The next ‘Relax & Write’ retreat is scheduled for the weekend of 31st August to 3rd September 2018, and Edwina and I are already planning new workshops and exotic dessert combinations. Full details on the retreat will be available soon, but if you’re interested in coming along, please send me an email at: helenapastor2@gmail.com

For reviews and photos of past retreats, check out the ‘Relax & Write’ website:

Hope to see you in spring with the other mermaids and scribes at Evans Head!

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Relax & Write 2017

Last weekend, Edwina Shaw and I hosted the inaugural ‘Relax & Write’ yoga and writing retreat for women at Camp Koinonia in Evans Head. The retreat was a huge success – we had ten wonderful participants, all at different stages of their yoga and writing practice, but none of that seemed to matter. Edwina began each day with an early morning yoga session, and then we had workshops in memoir and fiction writing, editing and other matters related to submitting work. Between workshops, there was time to write or sleep or go to the beach or have a massage, and then we gathered again in the evenings for drinks and a candle-lit meal in the chapel. Just before everyone went home, we had a collage-making session that provided us all with insights that we weren’t expecting, and made me realise once again that collage is a very powerful medium.

Morning yoga

 

Edwina and I both agreed that we achieved what we set out to do – to create a nurturing environment where a group of women could relax and write and get to know each other and create ongoing friendships. We now have a ‘Relax & Write’ facebook group – a place to share writing opportunities, and support and celebrate each other’s literary efforts. Edwina and I are already planning our next ‘Relax & Write’ retreat for early March 2018, where we’ll offer a new range of workshops in Writing in Scenes, Creating Realistic Dialogue, Songwriting, and Screenwriting.

Three cheers for our first ‘Relax & Write’ retreat … thanks to Marie and Craig for making Camp Koinonia so special, thanks to Johnny West for his fabulous dinners, and thanks to Becky Holland for documenting the weekend with her beautiful photos!

Outdoor writing class

Writing with friends

 

Candlelit dinner

Beach path

Sunrise at the beach

 

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Whether you’re a writer in need of relaxation and a good stretch, or a yoga practitioner yearning to write, this is the retreat for you.

Edwina Shaw and I have been holding our own private writing retreats at Evans Head since 2005 to relax and write and share our stories. This year we’re opening up our retreat to other women who’d like to do the same.

Relax, write and enjoy yourself in a beautiful coastal setting with experienced workshop facilitators and published authors.

Unwind with yoga and free your creative voice with lots of fun writing activities and workshops. All only a minutes’ walk from a glorious beach surrounded by national park where you can swim, walk, laze in the sun or meditate to your heart’s content.

Cost:

$400 for twin share with ensuite or $350 twin share with communal facilities

EARLY BIRD $380 / $330 if booked and deposit of $150 received before 31st July 2017

This includes:

  • all yoga and writing workshops
  • 2 nights twin share ensuite accommodation / or twin share with communal facilities
  • healthy home-cooked meals on Friday and Saturday nights

Optional extras:

  • Massage with Shannon Radke
  • Personalised Editorial Feedback with Edwina or Helena (10 Pages in 20 Minutes).

Program:

FRIDAY

Arrival from 2 p.m.

5:30 p.m.        Welcome nibbles and drinks, introductions

6-7 p.m.          Introductory deep relaxation and writing exercise

7 p.m.              Dinner

SATURDAY

7 – 8:15 a.m.   Gentle morning yoga with Edwina

9:30 – 12:30   Memoir workshop with Helena

12:30 – 3 p.m. Lunch and free time to enjoy the beach (or have a nap!)

3 – 5:30 p.m.   Writing the Body with Edwina.

7 p.m.              Dinner

SUNDAY

7 – 8:15 a.m. Yoga with Edwina

9:30 – 12:30   Writing fiction using yoga techniques

12:30 – 2:30   Lunch and free time

2:30 – 4:30     Self editing with Helena

4:30 p.m.        Feedback and farewells

 

To book or find out more information, please contact me at:

helenapastor2@gmail.com or call 0447 334 665.

We’d love to have you join us … remember, all roads lead to Evans Head!

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Long time, no blog post. I’ve been too busy writing songs, playing guitar, editing a manuscript, dreaming up wild and wonderful projects and chopping wood. Yes, winter has hit Armidale in a big way – frosty mornings, wood heaters, boots and coats. But all of that is about to change. This weekend I’m heading off to the Whitsunday Writers Festival (WWF) at Airlie Beach, where I’ll give a talk about Wild Boys and also present a two-hour workshop on memoir writing. From the looks of the program, Gloria Burley and the WWF team have put together a lovely intimate festival with guests including Sallyanne Atkinson, Mo Khadra, Craig Cormick, Linda Frylink Anderson and Pagan Malcolm. I think it’s going to be a fun weekend – I’ll be staying in a fancy beach resort at the Abell Point Marina and luxuriating in the tropical warmth. I’m really looking forward to this gig!

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Also, I recently met up with my dear friend Edwina Shaw for our 12th writers’ retreat at Evans Head. As always, we had a fabulous time (the photo below is evidence!). Along with our usual reading of each other’s work, Edwina and I started planning an Evans Head ‘Relax and Write Retreat for Women’. This weekend retreat, which will be held in early September, will include fiction, memoir and editing workshops, individualised editorial feedback, as well as yoga classes. More information and the booking form coming soon!

Helena and Edwina Evans Head 2017

 

 

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In less than two weeks, I’ll be appearing in three separate events at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival, and I’m really excited about this wonderful opportunity to promote Wild Boys. On Saturday 5 September, as part of ‘BWF in the ‘burbs!’, I’ll be speaking at the Mitchelton Library, and the following day, I’ll be discussing Wild Boys on the Queensland Terrace of the State Library with my dear friend Edwina Shaw (check out Edwina’s blog for her review of Wild Boys). Straight after that session, I’ll be giving a 3-hour Masterclass in memoir writing – ‘Close to Home’ – where I can share all the tricks I’ve learned from working with some of Australia’s best editors over the years. So, it’ll be a hectic weekend, but lots of fun – especially catching up with Edwina again.

Meanwhile … it’s full steam ahead here in Armidale. The official launch of Wild Boys is being held at the BackTrack Shed next Tuesday. Professor Annabelle Duncan, Vice-Chancellor of the University of New England (UNE), will launch the book in the BackTrack classroom – and this event will bring together two very different parts of my life in Armidale. Wild Boys developed as a parallel project while I was completing my PhD in Creative Research Practice at UNE, and the university has always been very supportive of my writing (click here to see UNE’s recent media release about Wild Boys). I think the launch will provide a sense of completion for this writing project … in a way, it’s almost like I’m ‘graduating’ from BackTrack.

Over the last month, while I’ve been dealing with a range of complex post-publication emotions, I’ve been putting in lots of applications for writing opportunities in 2016. Hopefully, some of them of them will come through for me – and I’ll be able to see a bit more of the world next year. Finally, in today’s Sun Herald, Karen Hardy has written a fantastic feature about Wild Boys.

 

 

Advance copies of Wild Boys have arrived … and it’s such a thrill to hold the book in my hands after all these years! A couple of weeks ago, I met up with my dear friend and fellow writer, Edwina Shaw, for one of our regular coastal retreats. Normally, these retreats are full-on hard work – eight-hour days of editing and re-writing and discussing each other’s manuscripts – with only the nights free to hang out and ‘chill’. But this was a ‘no rules’ writing retreat … I had a copy of Wild Boys to hand over to Edwina and we were in a celebratory mood. Chocolate pudding for dinner? No rules! Strawberry champagne at three in the afternoon? No rules! Lie on the sand for hours and just rest? No rules!

Each morning, I walked for miles along the beach at Evans Head, dressed only in my swimmers and a sarong. The air felt easy on my skin and my hair went curly from the salt water. One day, Edwina and I went to Chinamans Beach, one of my favourite places on the coast. In our bare feet, we followed a path to the top of the headland, where the grass was so soft and spongy that I just had to lie down, spread-eagled on the ground, staring at the blue sky above me. It felt like we were on Kirrin Island with the Famous Five – all we needed was a bottle of ginger beer and some sardine sandwiches. Oh, heavenly times … I drove home to Armidale feeling very grateful for my friendship with Edwina.

Wild Boys will be publicly available in July, and it’s a strange thing to imagine other people reading such a personal story. I’m trying to stay calm and focused – remembering why I wrote the book, and not letting the pre-publication rollercoaster of emotions knock me over. I’m ready for whatever’s coming my way … and, besides, riding a rollercoaster is exciting and fun!

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So much has happened since I last wrote. First of all, the PhD paralysis passed and I finished the semi-final draft of my thesis at the end of September – yes, even the exegesis! I had to spend a long time in the PhD isolation ward, where I swore profusely at my computer screen, googled things like: ‘How do I muster up the energy to finish my thesis?’, and listened to Bob Dylan’s Desire album … where he sings ‘The way is long but the end is near.’ Oh, so true. Strangely enough, I actually like my exegesis now and I can’t understand why it took so long to write. As I wait for my supervisors’ final comments, I can relax – take a breath – and re-enter the world.

I’ve just returned from a celebratory writing retreat at the coast with my dear friend, Edwina Shaw. After reading and commenting on Edwina’s latest manuscript – a gripping work of fiction based on a horrific true crime – I spent the remainder of the retreat walking on the beach, swimming, and lying on my swag under the trees. In the evenings, Edwina and I sat on the verandah of our cabin and drank whisky and chatted about writerly matters – like the best way to write bios of different word lengths and our next projects. I’m so fortunate to have a writing-friend like Edwina. Check out Edwina’s report about our retreat: http://edwinashaw.com/2014/10/08/retreat-by-the-sea/

Along with celebrating my ‘almost-finished’ thesis, Edwina and I also raised our glasses to … wait for it … my book contract with University of Queensland Press! YES! In July 2015, UQP are going to publish my memoir about my involvement with BackTrack Youth Works in Armidale. All of this came about through the efforts of Brian Cook, who is now my literary agent. Thank you, Brian, and thank you Alexandra Payne, the non-fiction publisher at UQP, who loved my manuscript and pushed it through the acquisitions meeting. Life can change so quickly – I signed contracts for a publisher and an agent in one week. After I heard the news from UQP, I rang Bernie Shakeshaft, whose work features in the memoir-manuscript. I could barely form coherent sentences I was so excited, and when he heard the news, Bernie said: ‘It was always going to happen … but good that it happened.’ Yes. What a relief.

Edwina now calls me her ‘poster girl for resilience’, and although it has been a long haul, my experience confirms that successful writers are the ones who don’t give up. Keep the faith.

Reading under the trees at the coastal retreat

Reading under the trees at the coastal retreat

 

 

Hello again. I’ve been thinking about how much of a writer’s life is spent waiting – waiting to hear about journal submissions, funding grants, applications for writing retreats or waiting to get a book accepted for publication – and, at times, all this waiting makes it hard to ‘keep the faith’. Over the past few years, I’ve seen everyone in my online writing group get published, which is wonderfully exciting, but sometimes I wonder how much longer I will need to wait – and yes, I’m aware the tone of this post is very different to my manic rant from last month. Writers must seem a little erratic to other people – one minute we’re up, the next we’re down, and our circumstances can change so quickly. Earlier this week, my dear friend Edwina Shaw heard that her book Thrill Seekers has been shortlisted for the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, which is part of the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. This is a dream come true for Edwina, and a prestigious validation of her many years of hard work on the manuscript. One of Edwina’s oft-repeated sayings is: ‘Successful writers are the ones who don’t give up,’ and making it onto the shortlist has proven Edwina’s words to be true. Go Edwina! I’ve also just seen the fabulous cover of Ghost Wife – a memoir written by another friend, Michelle Dicinoski, which Black Inc. is publishing in February next year, and I have to admit I’m envious.

The other day I emailed Anne Reilly, the HarperCollins editor I first met at Varuna in April 2011, and asked her if I should be concerned about how long it has taken me to prepare my manuscript for submission to HarperCollins and whether I should try and hasten the rest of the process. As always, Anne’s reply was prompt and reassuring. She wrote: ‘It has necessarily taken a while; writing is like that. Don’t be worried. Some people whiz through quickly; they are exceptions.’ And so I will wait a little while longer. My time will come, and although I haven’t yet published a book, my writing has attracted some wonderful opportunities and I am very fortunate. The latest news is that I’ve been awarded another residency at Bundanon next year – where I will stay in the Writer’s Cottage and work on my next project, ‘The Bakery Stories’, while the cows and kangaroos wander past the window. What a blessing, and a welcome reminder to ‘keep the faith’. Until next time…

Hello again. It’s spring in Armidale, and I’ve just returned from a fabulous annual writing retreat at the coast with my dear friend, Edwina Shaw. We both brought full manuscripts to be edited and checked over, and although Edwina and I spent many hours sitting on the veranda of our cabin reading and making corrections on each other’s work, we still managed to walk along the beach and swim in the surf and eat delicious food and drink beer and laugh long into the night and sing ‘Speed Bonnie Boat’ and light a candle for Helen Greaney, a beautiful 93-year-old woman who died last week (and we even had time to debate Hemingway’s use of ‘and’ in lengthy sentences). And the best thing is that when Edwina finished reading the completed draft of my memoir – yes, you read that right: the completed draft – she thought the new narrative structure worked really well. Hooray! Edwina thinks I still need to do a little cutting and ‘rejigging’, but the final HarperCollins-submission-ready-draft is rapidly approaching.

A huge motivation to finish the memoir came my way in early September, when I heard that Heather Taylor Johnson – one of the other Varuna HarperCollins Award winners – had her manuscript accepted by HarperCollins. It took ten months for the team to reach a decision, but it was well worth the wait because Heather’s book is going to be published in Australia and probably in America as well. Heather is so happy. She’d just gotten off the phone with her editor when she sent the news through, and after I forwarded my congratulations, I thought to myself: ‘I want that feeling, too, but it’s never going to happen if I don’t finish this draft.’ So I did it. I worked like a madwoman to get it done before the 20th September (the final deadline I set for myself), and posted the manuscript to my ASA mentor, Judith Lukin-Amundsen, with a great sigh of relief. Judith has two other manuscripts to edit before she can look at mine, so it may be a while before I receive her feedback, but she was so pleased that I’d finished and said: ‘You can be thrilled, Helena, to have brought yourself out the other end of this draft.’

I am thrilled.

Life has responded accordingly. Since I sent the manuscript to Judith (and escaped from the confines of my writing area), the world has opened up before me. First of all, a washing machine unexpectedly arrived into my life, just as my old Simpson spun its last load. Then, last week, I heard I won a Varuna Fellowship for my next project – ‘The Bakery Stories’ – a novella which explores the story of the Dutch Jews during World War II. I’ve been working on ‘The Bakery Stories’ on and off for about five years now (as a way to build up a publication record) and it’s such an affirmative ‘Yes!’ to be awarded the fellowship to further develop this project.

Fired up by these positive signs, and strangely energised after finishing the memoir, I developed an idea for a future writer-in-residence position with a local youth organisation. The possibilities of this project are so exciting they just about keep me awake at night, but because I need funding, I had to quickly pull together a Country Arts Support Program (CASP) Application. I sent it away just in time to meet the submission deadline, and will hear whether my application was successful in November.

Also, while still intoxicated by the potential of this writer-in-residence idea (and flying high about the Varuna win), I ran into a friend – another PhD student – on the path outside Dixson library at UNE. I’d seen this same friend in the lingerie shop in town the week before, when I was buying a new bra to celebrate finishing the draft, but it wasn’t really the place to have an in-depth discussion about our studies. This time I had a pile of books under my arm – like a proper post-graduate student – so we stopped to chat. I excitedly told my friend about finishing the memoir and about my writer-in-residence idea, and then I showed her the books I’d just borrowed – titles by Tom Wolfe and Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson – and we talked about the legacy of the New Journalists, and it was all so exciting I could barely contain myself, even though I was aware of raving and perhaps coming across as just a little manic. But my friend was beaming with excitement, too. ‘It’s all so perfect!’ she enthused at one point. She also suggested that my idea could be incorporated into my exegesis, which caused me to remember that I have to write my exegesis very quickly if I am to make 2012 my ‘Year of Completion’ – but even finishing my PhD felt like a cinch that day.

As we said our farewells, I remembered my Varuna news and told my friend about the fellowship. ‘Oh Helena!’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘You’re a writer … a real writer!’ And I looked at her and thought, ‘Yes, I am!’ After nearly nine years, I am finally ready to admit to myself – and to the world – that I am a writer!

And the possibilities of life suddenly seem endless.

Hello again. Oh, what a crazy hectic time! I’m off to Bundanon in less than a week, and because of its remote location (nearest shop thirty minutes away and no live-in cook like at Varuna), I have a huge checklist of things to do / find / pack before the weekend. I’m really looking forward to having time to get back to the memoir – I’ve hardly looked at it in recent weeks. I managed to read the Varuna blah, and what an experience that was! I was exclaiming as I read through it, and my life made much more sense to me afterwards. The best thing is that it contains heaps of good material to merge in with the current draft. Emotional truths. Which is just what the memoir needed – so thanks to my HarperCollins editor, Anne Reilly, for that suggestion. Writing from the heart is something I’ll be doing first, not last, when I start on my next project.

I’ve been unsettled since I went to the Gold Coast a fortnight ago to help while my mother was in hospital for her knee operation. I was pretty nervous about the operation – actually, anything to do with hospitals makes me nervous – but, apart from a few worrying days, all is well. My mother is now recovering in a flash rehab centre, and I can breathe again. While I was at the Gold Coast, my dear friend, Edwina Shaw, came down from Brisbane to offer her support – we stayed in my mother’s resort-style unit at Broadbeach, and jokingly called it our ‘Hospital Retreat’. Each year, Edwina and I organise one or two writing retreats at Evans Head; we spend our time lying around reading, editing, writing, talking, resting, swimming in the sea and staying away of household chores. Our ‘hospital retreat’ was nothing like that… every day we were busy driving, visiting, shopping, cooking and cleaning. By the end of the week we’d filled my mother’s freezer with meals (which will make her life a lot easier when she comes home from rehab) and left the unit sparkling clean and ready for her return. Edwina and I couldn’t stop singing Amy Winehouse’s Rehab (what a sad short life she had), imagining all the oldies from the hospital pushing their walkers to and fro in time with the music – No! No! No! I tell you, hospitals do strange things to my head …

In the communal bookshelf at the unit complex we spotted Helen Garner’s The Spare Room, and in its place we left a copy of Edwina’s recently published book ‘Thrill Seekers’. Yes! One of us finally has a real book at long last! Unfortunately I’ll be at Bundanon when ‘Thrill Seekers’ is launched at Avid Reader bookshop in West End on the 9th March, and I’ll also miss my choir’s annual retreat at the coast. Bum! But I need to retreat. Desperately. Retreats are like rehab for writers … and just as rehab isn’t about lying around and doing nothing, retreats and residencies aren’t ‘holidays’ as some people like to think, but restorative sessions where writers have time to get themselves and their projects into shape. I want to leave Bundanon with a new-look manuscript – and that’s going to require time, effort and dedication. I’ll try and write a post while I’m there, and tell you how it’s going. Until then …

PS. My contribution to the Varuna Writer-a-Day “app” was recorded last week. Here’s the link:

http://varunathewritershouse.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/writer-a-day-helena-pastor-reading-from-iron-men-alchemy-at-work/