OCTOBER 15 & 16, 2010
THE NASHVILLE PATH & PEN WRITERS’ CONFERENCE, in its fourth year as Nashville’s inspirational gathering for writers and aspiring writers, brings people together to explore writing as spiritual practice. Held at the beautiful Scarritt-Bennett Center in the heart of Nashville, the conference encourages various forms of spiritually oriented writing, including poetry, liturgy, inspirational writing, and journaling. Participants will experience an atmosphere in which new skills are encouraged that will deepen participants’ ability to use writing as a tool for emotional and spiritual healing.
WHAT IS SPIRITUAL WRITING?
Spiritual writing explores your sense of the sacred, your quest for meaning and purpose, your encounters with God or Absolute Reality, and your wrestling with faith, doubt, belief, and the ordinary wonder of your everyday life. Such writing may or may not be overtly religious, deal explicitly with religion, or be associated with any traditional faith or belief system.
WHAT IS WRITING AS A
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE?
Writing can tap the deepest recesses of your being, and reveal wisdom not otherwise available to you. Writing in this way is a spiritual practice. Spiritual writing includes journaling, spiritual autobiography, “Morning Pages,” interpretive translation of and commentary on sacred texts, and similar practices that use writing as a means to access the deeper layers of one’s heart, mind and soul.
WHY A CONFERENCE?
Spiritual writing and the community of writers engaged in it
can benefit from the interaction that a conference provides.
Nashville, with its rich tradition of spiritual book and music
publishing and its spiritually cosmopolitan flavor, is uniquely suited for this kind of gathering.
THE WORKSHOPS:
CONNECTING WITH KINDNESS AND COMPASSION IN A WEB 2.0 WORLD
presented by June Cotner
This workshop for writers focuses on the merging of spirituality with technology and online social media. Come explore how we can live with deeper meaning, awareness, and wisdom in our technology-rich world. June Cotner, author of 26 highly successful, inspirational books, will share how the effective use of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can greatly enhance your writing career as you become a force for good online.
CURIOUS POEMS AND EVERYDAY WONDERS
presented by Thandiwe Shiphrah
Inspiration is always available to us if we are willing to engage the world around us and exercise our imaginations. In this workshop, we will write to the rhythms of daily life, paying closer attention to familiar objects and imagining new possibilities for mundane events. As we write poems – and recite them to each other – we will discover how reading and writing poetry can help us celebrate life, face uncertainty, derive meaning from our struggles, and remind us of our resourcefulness. This workshop focuses on creating new poems, however the prompts, reflections, and exercises will be useful for prose writers as well.
TWEETS FROM THE UNDERGROUND: THE POWER OF APHORISM WRITING TO SHARPEN YOUR SKILLS, HONE YOUR IDEAS, AND BUILD AN AUDIENCE
presented by Rabbi Rami Shapiro
This workshop focuses on aphorisms, short proverbs, that articulate your insights into life. The goal of this workshop is threefold: to understand the power of aphoristic writing, to begin to master the form of aphoristic writing, and to produce a small (and growing) body of personal aphorisms that you can share on Twitter. Rabbi Rami’s Twitter aphorisms (called Jaded Wisdom) number over 1,000, and have earned him a following of over 2,000 readers.
THE PRESENTERS
JUNE COTNER is the author of 26 books, including the best-selling Graces, Bedside Prayers, and Dog Blessings. Her books, which have been published by major houses such as Harper Collins, Random House, and Hachette, altogether have sold nearly 900,000 copies and have earned praise in many national publications including USA Today, Better Homes & Gardens, Woman’s Day, and Family Circle. June has appeared on the television programs “Northwest Afternoon” and “AM Northwest.” Her newest book is Serenity Prayers: Prayers, Poems and Prose to Soothe Your Soul. For more information, please visit her website at www.junecotner.com where you can purchase her books at a 20 percent discount.
THANDIWE SHIPHRAH is an Artist of Encouragement. For the past 20 years, this poet, performer and community activist has helped both emerging and experienced writers find inspiration, take artistic risks, and express themselves with greater freedom and authenticity. Her poetry has been published in anthologies, journals and magazines; on public radio and internet podcasts; on public transit and in a city-sponsored parking meter project. Thandiwe is the creator of the Line Breaks Literary Reading Series, a popular community outreach project that uses poetry as a catalyst for creating connections between Nashville’s diverse citizenry. Her books include Leftover Light: Poems and Don't Make No Sense: A Creative Response to Your Life's True Calling. She has also co-produced two innovative spoken word CDs, The Secret Marvelous Instead and Biting the Peony, in collaboration with composer/musician Daniel Arite (www.sonicbids.com/TheBoschInstitute). A dedicated arts advocate, Thandiwe strives to make the literary arts accessible to everyone. Her professional contributions have been recognized with grants from the DC Commission on the Arts, Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Puffin Foundation, among others. In 2003, she was honored by Nashville's poetry community with a Margaret Smith Beach Award, which is given to those who reach out to everyday people and act as mentors to emerging poets.
For more information about her work, visit her webpage at www.southernartistry.com/Thandiwe_Shiphrah
RAMI SHAPIRO, an award winning poet, author, and educator, is the Director of Wisdom House, a center for interfaith dialogue and spiritual inquiry at Scarritt-Bennett Center. A graduate of Hebrew Union College and Union Graduate School, Rami holds doctorates in both Contempoary Jewish Thought and Divinity, and is Adjunct Professor of Religion at Middle Tennessee State University where he also co-directs The Writer's Loft, MTSU Certificate Program in Creative Writing. He has written over a dozen works of poetry, liturgy, short stories and nonfiction. Rami's most recent books are The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness, Divine Feminine, Recovery – the Sacred Art, and Ecclesiastes Annotated and Explained.
PACKAGE OPTIONS:
COMMUTER’S PACKAGE - $110 - Includes tuition fee, lunch & dinner meals only, breaks and taxes
STANDARD PACKAGE - $220 - Includes 2 night’s stay (Oct. 15 & 16) in a standard room(dormitory-style with shared bath and no TV or internet access); tuition fee, all meals, breaks and taxes
UPGRADE PACKAGE - $260 - Includes 2 night’s stay (Oct. 15 & 16) in an upgraded room (dormitory-style with shared bath, and TV and internet access); tuition fee, all meals, breaks and taxes
STUDENT PACKAGE - $75 - Includes tuition fee and all meals and breaks. Advanced student registration is required with a copy of student ID
SAME DAY REGISTRATION - $300 - Housing and meals included as available, but not guaranteed
PROGRAM SCHEDULE OVERVIEW:
(subject to change)
FRIDAY, OCT. 15, 2010
3:00 – 5:30 pm Registration & Check-In - Laskey Building Room check-in is at 3:00 pm
5:30 – 6:15 pm Dinner - Susie Gray Dining Hall
6:30 – 8:00 pm Gathering/Centering Time
Welcome, Conference Announcements, Introduction of Faculty
Presentation: “The Joy of Tex(t)” - Rabbi Rami Shapiro
SATURDAY, OCT. 16, 2010
(For those participants staying on campus and who have these meal tickets, breakfast will be in Susie Gray Dining Hall from 7:30 – 8:30 am)
8:00 – 9:00 am Registration continues - Laskey Lobby
8:30 am – 10:00 am Early Morning Workshops:
Workshop 1: “Tweets from the Underground: The Power of Aphorism Writing To Sharpen Your Skills, Hone Your Ideas, and Build an Audience” presented by Rabbi Rami Shapiro
Workshop 2: “Curious Poems and Everyday Wonders” presented by Thandiwe Shiphrah
10:30 – 12:00 noon Mid-Morning Workshops:
Workshop 3: “Curious Poems and Everyday Wonders” presented by Thandiwe Shiphrah
Workshop 4: “Connecting with Kindness and Compassion in a Web 2.0 World” presented by June Cotner
12:00 – 1:30 pm Lunch - Susie Gray Dining Hall
2:00 – 3:30 pm Afternoon Workshops:
Workshop 5: “Connecting with Kindness and Compassion in a Web 2.0 World” presented by June Cotner
Workshop 6: “Tweets from the Underground: The Power of Aphorism Writing To Sharpen Your Skills, Hone Your Ideas, and Build an Audience” presented by Rabbi Rami Shapiro
3:45 – 5:30 pm Closing Session
Open Mic! 3:45 – 4:30 - Be brave and share your writings with the group!
“Creativity in Writing” 4:30 – 5:15
Come attend our final session where June Cotner will share these strategies:
• How to make the most of the information learned from our conference
• The best sources for keeping up with trends that lead to creative breakthroughs
• How to pay attention to “clues in the environment” for generating writing ideas
• How to turn an initial idea into a “big picture” world view via the process of mind mapping.
This will be a great closing session so you can go home prepared to put your new ideas into action!
Closing comments 5:15 – 5:30
5:30 – 6:30 pm Conversation & Dinner - Susie Gray Dining Hall
Note: For those with room reservations, breakfast is from 7:30 – 8:30 am in Susie Gray Dining Hall and check-out is at 10:30 am, CT on Sun., Oct. 17.
Register online here
Download registration form
Download brochure (pdf)
For more info, contact Kim Johnson: 615.340.7450 or
kjohnson@scarrittbennett.org
