OCTOBER 25-27, 2024
hollywood, california
The beloved author of ten New York Times bestselling books, California Hall of Fame Inductee, and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, Anne Lamott is a living literary legend.
Anne partnered with A Writing Room at our very first retreat in 2022, and shortly after became a full-time artist in residence at A Writing Room. She brings her passion, humor, and skill as a writer — and human — to this year's cohort, as well as a little “benevolent pressure.” Through her guidance, you will learn how to stop not writing and officially be able to call Anne a mentor who is in your corner.
If you Google “Greatest Living Authors, ” you will find Marlon James on almost every published list. He’s solidified himself as a true master of the writing craft. Marlon won the 2015 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, making him the first Jamaican author to take home the U.K.’s most prestigious literary award. James combines masterful storytelling with the brilliant skill of characterization and an eye for detail to forge bold novels of dazzling ambition and scope.
We’ve tapped Marlon to lead our emphasis on the craft of writing to make sure you leave with new skills and tools you can apply immediately.
It’s hard to think of a living writer who better embodies the literary American dream than Cheryl Strayed.
Cheryl has enjoyed all the success an author could hope for, including her #1 New York Times bestselling memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film. Additionally, her book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar is based on her wildly-popular column and podcast “Dear Sugar,” which was developed into a Hulu original series.
We’re thrilled to welcome a writer of Cheryl's caliber willing to share her incredible insights and experiences with the 2024 Writing Room cohort.
Amie McNee is here to tell you that you are important, worthy, and the world needs your art. Her life’s calling is to create supportive, empowered communities for writers and artists, and she furthers that mission with handwritten notes to artists, and through her podcast, Unpublished. Amie believes art is an incredibly brave and generous act, and she wants to create space for everyone to become the artists the world needs them to be.
Cole Arthur Riley understands the connections between spirituality, the body, and writing with a deep and powerful intimacy. The creator of Black Liturgies, Cole is also the author of This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us. An instant New York Times bestseller, This Here Flesh explores belonging, liberation, and dignity through three generations of family stories.
Anyone who identifies as a highly-sensitive person knows that a teacher can either be a lifeline or an obstacle in your path, and Judith Orloff’s heart for the creative is unmatched.
An empath herself, the core of Judith’s practice is helping empaths and sensitive people tap into their creativity and intuition. As a UCLA psychiatric clinical faculty member, she synthesizes conventional medicine with intuition and spirituality, which she writes about in her New York Times bestselling books, including her newest, The Genius of Empathy, which includes a foreword by the Dalai Lama.
To write is to give yourself a voice — and if you feel like no one is listening, Jen Pastiloff is here to say, “I’ve got you.” Thousands of people have seen themselves and recognized their own experience in her online essays, podcast, and book, On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real and Listening Hard, which recounts her journey through depression, shame, and rebuilding her family. Her focus on authenticity, healing, and vulnerability, along with her unique teaching style, have seen her featured on Good Morning America, CBS News, New York Magazine — and is exactly why she’s joining the 2024 cohort.
If you’ve ever wished you could break your creativity free from self-imposed limitations and negativity, Gay and Katie Hendricks can show you the way. Their mission is to help create a world of deep intimacy, satisfying creativity, heartfelt appreciation, and wild play through their 40 books, the thousands of coaches they’ve trained, their seminars held around the globe, and even their appearance on Oprah. We’re delighted to bring their practice of conscious living and loving to Writers Rising.
If you’ve ever struggled to reach your artistic goals, chances are that Mark Matousek has helped someone just like you. Matousek’s Writing to Awaken method, which he offers at workshops internationally, has helped thousands of people around the world bring their creative visions to life. A Writing Room partnered with Mark because his focus on self-exploration, personal growth, and spirituality will prompt you to explore your own gifts, challenges, and opportunities for creativity and passion.
Self-judgment is the bane of any writer, making our stories seem foolish, our words clumsy, and the blank page itself a condemnation. HeatherAsh Amara has something to say about that. She’s spent three decades and nine books — including the bestselling Warrior Goddess Training and upcoming release Wild, Willing, and Wise — guiding her readers from self-judgment to discernment and victimhood to authentic vulnerability. We’re thrilled to have her skillful guidance and openhearted worldview join the Writers Rising’s cohort.
Jacob teaches from his personal experiences of trauma healing, transformation and creative recovery. Author of Blessed are the Weird and The Creative Cure, Jacob is an avid student of psychology, spirituality and human potential. His teachings will help you claim your creative birthright and live the truth of who you really are. As co-founder of A Writing Room, Jacob brings his insights as an entrepreneur, author and fellow creative to each of his dynamic workshops.
If you love to read, you’ve almost certainly loved a book that Jake Morrissey helped bring into the world. From Calvin and Hobbes to The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store to Bird by Bird, Morrissey’s taste has largely defined the modern bookshelf, and he has a deep love for making a writer’s work shine, even if his own influence is invisible. An editor at Penguin and one of Writing Room’s industry experts, we’re deeply grateful to have Jake join us at Writers Rising to offer his unique insight gained through an editor’s lens.
English professor turned creative entrepreneur, Claire has built her life around one simple concept — examining the space between where you are and where you want to be. By deeply examining why we do (or do not) change, Claire is here to help you transform knowledge into action. After building a global agency that helps entrepreneurs identify their zone of genius, she now supports writers who want to turn their ideas into realities as co-founder of A Writing Room.
As a teen dad, college dropout and ex-meth-head, Jack alchemized his origin story into art and emerged as a creative leader. Creator of the award-winning podcast Hello Humans and life-long advocate for recovery and mental health, Jack channeled years of artistic collaboration into his role as Creative Director and co-founder of A Writing Room. He's designed every facet of the Writers Rising retreat with you in mind, ensuring each session is highly interactive and co-designed by you.
Transformation, power, love — these are things we all seek, but perhaps none so much as writers, and Reema Zaman’s story will lead you to them all. Her critically acclaimed memoir, I Am Yours, has been adopted into the Oregon high school curriculum through an Innovation Grant, and through her consulting and coaching, she teaches authors and speakers “the art of being unforgettable.” She was the 2018 Oregon Literary Arts’ Writer of Color Fellow and is a two-time RACC Award recipient.
For anyone seeking an example of boldness and courage in creativity, look no further than Kemi Nekvapil. She’s now one of Australia’s leading credentialed coaches, an author of three books (with one forthcoming) and a highly sought-after international speaker. Nekvapil has studied leadership and purpose at The Gross National Happiness Centre in Bhutan and trained with Dr Brené Brown to become a Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator. Out of 350+ attendees, Kemi was also the winner of A Writing Room’s Pitch Your Workshop event in 2023, so we’re thrilled to welcome her back this year as a presenter.
The starving artist trope has long perpetuated the idea that stress and trauma are necessary for great art, but Lynda Monk is here to change that narrative. Monk thrives on guiding people through their healing journeys, helping them align with their true desires and discover their true life purposes. Known for her profound insights into the therapeutic and life-changing power of journaling, she’s the author of several books on the subject and the Director of the International Association for Journal Writing.
If your inner critic keeps you from growing into your creative potential and literary freedom, Neal Allen is here to help. He offers insight through his book Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic, and unpacks the keys for levelling up your writing through his upcoming book Good Writing: Tools of the Trade, co-written with Anne Lamott.
If there’s one thing Karen Salmansohn can teach you, it’s turning pain into purpose. For each step in her life that didn’t go as planned, she created the tools and resources she needed to bounce back, leading her to successfully transition from a career in New York’s top ad agencies to her own platform (NotSalmon.com). When she’s not writing her bestselling books (like How to be Happy, Dammit) that have sold over 2 million copies, she’s using her extensive experience in branding and marketing to coach other authors towards growth in their businesses.
