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More about this trip-
Early practitioners of lectio divina often described reading as a practice that worked the earth of the heart. We will approach writing in a similar way, asking: what fresh ground do we want to break in our lives through writing? Together we will learn new writing practices that help us read what is written on our hearts, work with the fragments we are holding, think with other art forms about the practice of writing, and move past the fear and torpor that often keep us from putting our pen to the page. You do not need to be a professional writer to come on this retreat. In fact, you do not need to consider yourself a writer at all to join us. Together, we hope to think about new roles that different forms of writing can play in our lives.
We’ll be examining the work of writers like Virginia Woolf to guide our writing practices. By putting existing work in conversation with our own lives, we hope to make a framework for our own creativity to thrive.
There will be a lecture and a writing workshop each day as well as time for reading, writing, creating florilegia, walking, enjoying delicious meals together, and sharing our writing with one another. We hope you can join us.
Trip Faculty
Vanessa Zoltan
Co-Faculty Leader (she/her)
Vanessa is the CEO of Not Sorry. She is on three of our podcasts: Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, The Real Question, and Hot & Bothered. She founded Common Ground Pilgrimages in order to travel with brilliant faculty to beautiful places and talk about books with amazing pilgrims. A neat trick she pulled off! She is also the author of the book, Praying with Jane Eyre.
A proud California girl, currently living in MA with her gorgeous blended family, Vanessa was trained as a non-denominational chaplain at Harvard Divinity School. Her Romance novelist pseudonym, if she ever publishes a Romance novel, will be Lorelai Mason.
Stephanie Paulsell
Co-Faculty Leader (she/her)
Stephanie Paulsell joined the faculty of HDS in 2001 as Lecturer on Ministry and was appointed associate dean for ministry studies in 2003. She served as associate dean until 2005, when she was appointed Houghton Professor of the Practice of Ministry Studies. For the 2007–08 academic year, she was also associate dean for faculty and curricular affairs.
Paulsell studies the intersections between intellectual work and spiritual practice as well as the academic study of religion and the practices of ministry. She is the author of Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice and co-editor of The Scope of Our Art: The Vocation of the Theological Teacher. She is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).