writing

Sunrise at Sangsurya!

Q. What happens when you put 20 writers in a beautiful location overlooking breaching whales?

A. You get a whole lot of inspired writing and shared wisdom, that’s what!

From the carpark of our retreat centre, the spectacular Sangsurya in Byron Bay, we overlooked the sea and splashes from the tails of whales with their young ones heading south.

Whales are magical creatures. According to my Animal Dreaming Oracle Cards by Scott Alexander King, whales are the record keepers, the holders of Mother Earth’s sacred records. The whale is a reminder to reconnect with the Earth Mother and to listen deeply into our own hearts to reveal the stories of our spirits and our ancestors. Perfect totem for our writing retreat!

Sangsurya was a maze of rooms, each unique and decorated with loving care and Asian artefacts, all surrounded in lush tropical gardens ablaze with blooms. I even had a bathtub! YAY! Not only that, a mosaic of a mermaid lay beneath me in the water. Happy days!

As we ate our incredible, delicious meals (every meal was a feast) prepared by Ronit, Sam and the team from Open Table we looked out to the sea and watched whales breaching and smacking the water with fins and tails. Then of course we had to stop watching and start writing!

We crammed in as much information as we could into the writing workshops. Workshops covered all the elements of narrative for both memoirists and fiction writers – from writing in scenes to developing a character-driven plot to shaping a premise, structuring for success (the brain twisting workshop!) and pitching to publishers.

And what a conscientious group of writers they were! Everyone turned up to workshops and yoga and even pranayama! How wonderful to have such eager participants.

As an extra bonus, the wonderful Matthew Bergan led a few of the yoga sessions, teaching us all some new moves with laughter in the mix. And Kerstin had us all totally blissed out with her beautiful sound healing treatments with her singing bowls!

Between feasting and writing and chatting we had plenty of spaces to hide out and write when we had time between workshops, Monique’s miraculous bodywork treatments, one on one feedback and more feasting and chatting. New writing friendships were formed, which always makes me happy. Writers need other writers.

Plus, on our last day we danced up a storm with the joy infusion that was Lalita Lakshmi’s fun-filled, dressed up, high energy dance class. What fun! I may have been a little overexcited!

We finished our workshops with our traditional collage activity which I’m glad to say, even the most hesitant enjoyed with gusto.

Kindy photos below.

Don’t you just love those kindy grins 🙂

By the end of the retreat, we’d well and truly bonded as a group, and the goodbyes felt a bit like losing friends. Writing and sharing our stories connects us quickly on writing retreat, because we all share our deepest selves and the long and winding path to completing a book-length work. From YA witch stories, to 1989 HIV-impacted Darlinghurst, to outback orgies and memoirs of recovering ourselves after trauma, a guidebook to aging well, works that incorporated art and stories of our grandmothers, to middle aged romances; we had it all!

Thank you to all the wise and wonderful writers who joined us at this second last of our Transformational Writing Retreats. We are shutting up shop on these collaborative retreats with the talented and lovely Kerstin Pilz next year after Italy.

Retreats are only as good as the people who come along, and this bunch of conscientious, hardworking, fun-loving writers made this a great one. Thank you everyone. Hope to see you again one day, maybe at your book launches!

Next retreat for me is Macleay Island in early November. Exciting! Marg applied for a RADF grant to get me out to their writing community and it worked. Local writing folk on limited incomes are welcome to join us.

Then next year April (9-11) is our Memoir and Life Writing Retreat (best for newbies) and August (6 -8) is our Feedback and Revision/Second Draft Retreat (best for those with a bit of work under their belts or those wanting to plan out a new book).

After packing up on the last morning, Kerstin and I headed to the beach and had a refreshing swim, then went up to the lighthouse to see the view. A beautiful young whale was swimming directly underneath the cliff, so close we saw the glisten of its skin and the glint in its eye as it rose gently to the surface. Must be a good omen, hey?

May whale wisdom fill your stories with deep insight and inspiration.

Now go forth and write like the wind – free and without limits!

With lots of love,

Edwina 🙂 xx

Cover image of Some Justice by Cathy Byrne

The creative arts have been given to humanity to help us heal and express our emotions and for those more spiritually inclined can also help us connect to powers and energies greater than ourselves. To create is a natural urge that every teenager in the midst of teen angst knows. The relief of that maudlin poem or that furious painting or those piercings that express our anger and despair to the world or just for ourselves.

A whole lot of that healing comes from telling our stories without interruption, without judgement. Writing out our feelings helps us understand them better. Sharing these feelings with others is empowering. Our voices are heard. Our side of the story, our experiences of the world are valuable and valid.

Often, I write to bear witness to the lives of lost loved ones, but there is another power of the written word – justice within a system not yet truly able to serve the needs of women, children or the Queer community.

Cathy Byrne’s brave memoir Some Justice is her justice, the justice she was unable to find through the legal system which still does not hear the voices of children. Crimes against children often go unpunished because the voices of children are disbelieved, ignored or belittled. It takes a courageous adult to take that fight on for the child they once were.

Victims of childhood sexual and other kinds of abuse and assault are still asked, “What were you wearing?” as if any type of clothing or appearance somehow causes the crime. Blame of the victim is still rife. She must have done something. As if the perpetrators of the assaults were somehow controlled by the actions of a child.

They are not.

Cathy’s fight for justice for the abuse she suffered over many years at the hand of her teacher goes further than Grace Tame’s advocacy of child victims in that it shows the impact of childhood abuse, forty years later.

Abuse is not forgotten, it is hidden within the nervous system, which humanity is only beginning to explore and understand. And, because it’s hidden, grows larger and more powerful until, often at menopause, the wounded child erupts from the grown woman, full of confusion, rage and fear. If she has the courage, she fights for the justice denied her as a child. Cathy’s search for justice was not served well by the legal system as it now stands. Systems like state education departments have much more money behind them, yet the victim must risk paying the costs and, worst of all, first prove their own innocence.

My daughter once worked as a judge’s associate and attended many rape and sexual abuse cases. After these experiences she swore that she if she ever suffered a sexual assault, she would NEVER take a sexual assault case to court because she saw how very damaging and accusative the process was – retraumatising the victim. But what was she wearing? The victim blamed for the assaults, her whole lifestyle and clothing choices under examination. I don’t care if they walk around naked, they’re not inviting assault. It takes a strong person to stand up against not only their abuser but also to withstand the police procedures and legal interrogations.

I am reminded of “Lucky Lane” a brave story in Queersland by Robbie Phillips who writes powerfully about his assault outside a club in the Brisbane Valley and his treatment at the police station. Gay Liddington’s beautiful memoir, Will I Ever Be Who I Am? finds the justice she was never given as a child for the abuse that happened within her own family home.

Will I Ever Be Who I Am? by Gay Liddington – you can grab a copy HERE

The fight for justice isn’t only through the courts. As Gay knows, and Cathy’s book Some Justice relates, the fight is often also with the family of the victim who refuse to acknowledge the abuse or its incomprehensible impact, because of the part they often unwittingly played in it. All those mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who looked the other way become angry with the victim and refuse to accept their truth because anything else is too painful. Writing for justice means your voice is heard even beyond family denials or minimisation.

It takes great courage to speak your truth and force others to see the crimes you experienced through your eyes. But you can!

In writing and publishing your story, your truth is finally heard. The length of the skirt you wore isn’t called into question. Your natural energy and attractiveness aren’t a cause of the assaults. Not screaming for help is understood because of the power imbalances and terror perpetrators take great pains to instil in their child victims.

In many ways, for victims of childhood sexual crimes, until the legal system is reshaped from its original patriarchal model, Writing for Justice is the only way to have the voices of victims truly heard. The only way they can find Some Justice.