Sample Past Issues of InkBlossom News
May 4, 2024
A sleeping roseate spoonbill tucks her face within her wing. What you can’t see are the babies at her feet. During the Matanzas Writers’ Retreat & Conference in late April, we took one morning off to tour the St. Augustine Alligator Farm’s rookery. It was magical, absolutely teeming with new life.
TICK, TICK, TICK!
How did May already get here? As I grow older, the calendar seems to speed up. I suppose this is more evidence that time is indeed a relative construct. It’s also a reminder to be kind to yourself and your writing. We’ve chosen an art that sets its own clock. And while I love deadlines and create them for myself as a means of accountability, sometimes a sentence, a paragraph, a narrative needs to age according to its own inscrutable calendar. Words don’t always flow. Sometimes the river becomes dust and all we can do it stare at the sky. Don’t sweat those “dry” periods. These subterranean moments are actually essential to the process. Writing is not merely the act of throwing words down on paper. A large part of creation happens in our subconscious while we’re washing dishes, planting a sunflower, whispering I love you to a beloved.
TWO CONFERENCE RETREATS NOT TO MISS!
WORK WITH CONNIE IN INTIMATE SETTINGS DESIGNED TO NURTURE, INSTRUCT, AND INSPIRE
Mount Dora, Florida and Santa Fe, New Mexico!
What beautiful gathering places for small groups of writers to create, think, wander, learn, make friends, bloom as artists. These intimate conference retreats (yes, they are both conference and retreat) provide a dynamic learning environment that is vigorous yet uplifting, nurturing yet instructive, with each writer gaining agency and joy in the creative process.
An egret strolling through the sweet waters of Lake Dora.
Mount Dora Writers’ Conference and Retreat
September 20-27, 2024 in Beautiful Mount Dora, Florida on Lake Dora
Daily Manuscript Workshops
Participant Readings
Craft and Publishing Panels
Prompts
Literary Guests
And More
APPLY
Send a 5-page writing sample—fiction or creative nonfiction—to InkBlossomWriters@gmail.com. The samples must be rendered in 12-point Times New Roman Font, double-spaced, with original default margins. Your application fee of $25 must be paid at the same time via PayPal at PayPal.Me/yucatanwriters or Venmo (username Constance-Fowler-2) using the family and friends option. If you are currently in one of my weekend workshops the fee, is waived.
Application Deadline: July 1, 2024. We accept applications on a rolling basis, so please apply early.
TUITION and FEES
APPLICATIONS IN BY MAY 1 - EARLY BIRD PRICE!
$1,200 - Seven-day conference, opening night reception, workshops, panels, presentations, readings
APPLICATIONS IN AFTER MAY 1
$1250 - Seven-day conference, opening night reception, workshops, panels, presentations, readings.
A $200 non-refundable deposit is due at the time of acceptance. The deposit is applied to the balance due.
Refunds, minus the deposit, issued up to June 1. Starting June 2, refunds, minus the deposit, will only be granted if another participant fills the slot.
Tuition is due in full by August 1.
Instructions on how to pay the tuition will be sent upon acceptance of the application.
Instructions on how to pay the application fee can be found here.
A small number of scholarships are available. To inquire, please email us.
LODGING
Mount Dora offers a plethora of lodging options, including Airbnbs, The Heirloom Inn, Adora Inn, Mount Dora Historic Inn, and Lakeside Inn. For those staying in or close to beautiful downtown Mount Dora, a conference shuttle will take participants to and from the conference site situated in a historic home.
Need more information? Contact us at InkBlossomWriters@gmail.com
The library in the legendary White Sister’s hacienda where we will discuss your manuscripts, hold craft and publishing discussions, give readings, and much more in gorgeous Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Santa Fe Writers Conference and Retreat
October 21-27, 2024
Join us in beautiful, historic Santa Fe, New Mexico for a week of full immersion in your writing. Enjoy the company of other writers as we gather in the afternoons to discuss that day’s work. Throughout the week, we’ll host craft discussions, engage in publishing talks and prompts, explore our pages and books we love, and more. But, mostly, we will write.
Rome, Italy - Winter 2025!
In early 2025 we will travel to one of the great cities of the world, Rome, Italy. In addition to manuscript discussions, writing time, lectures, readings, and explorations in translation, we will explore the Eternal City and all it has to offer: Roman cuisine, Renaissance art, the Keats-Shelly House, the Vatican Museum, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Roman Forum, and so much more. Check the InkBlossom website for the latest news on this dynamic overseas conference/retreat.
Virtual Special Topic Workshops, Writing Workshops, and Retreats
From voice to point of view to sense of place and more, InkBlossom’s virtual special topic workshops offer writers deep dives into various aspects of craft.
Our virtual writing retreats offer participants three-day immersions into their work, providing uninterrupted writing time, accountability, feedback, and community.
Our monthly writing workshops are currently full but applications will be accepted beginning in October.
Full details for all InkBlossom offerings can be found at the InkBlossom website.
“I wish every writer had Connie. She has cheered me when something worked, kindly confronted me when something didn't (and I remained in stubborn denial), and insisted I keep the project's overall trajectory as a guiding light to move things forward. She makes me dig deep and reminds me why I love writing. She's a warm, wise soul who loves helping writers birth books.” ~ Carla Damron, author of the novels Keeping Silent and The Stone Necklace
THINK ABOUT IT
On March 12, Penguin Random House will publish Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s last and unfinished novel Until August. According to NPR, “Before his death almost 10 years ago, Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez had nearly completed his final book. Struggling with the ravages of dementia, he told his sons to rip it up and never publish it.” His sons, however, said they found the nearly-finished novel moving and decided to go forward with its publication.
How do you feel about an author’s executors publishing work posthumously after the writer expressly instructed the work was not to be published? Should an author’s wishes always be honored? Does a reader’s right to know supersede the author’s wishes? Do family members have a responsibility and to whom? Will you buy Until August?
Weigh in at inkblossomwriters@gmail.com. Put “Marquez” in the subject line and let me know if we can publish your thoughts in an upcoming edition of our newsletter.
What I’m Reading
This month, as summer approaches, a beautiful essay collection and a can’t-put-it-down short story collection.
Your nonfiction bookshelf should definitely include Sandra Gail Lambert’s My Withered Legs and Other Essays. A writer of infinite talent, these essays focussing on disability, queerness, climate, and coming to writing later in life will evoke laughter, tears, self-recognition, and more than a few hallelujahs.
If you haven’t already bought it, run to your local bookstore this very second and pick up Old Crimes: and Other Stories by Jill McCorkle, one of our most beloved and lauded short story writers. The crimes, great and small, are as exquisite and intricate as a clockmaker’s heart. Few writers can explore humanity in all its vagaries and with as much love, honesty, and wisdom as does Jill.
InkBlossom Sighting!
A cherished member of our InkBlossom community, Linda Murphy Marshall, recently was seen in the bright lights of Times Square with her searing memoir Ivy Lodge: A Memoir of Transition and Discovery. What a thrill and what a beautiful book! Congratulations, Linda!
Share Your Good News
Do you have writing news you’d like to share with our community? If so, send it to me here with the subject line “Good News.”
Are you a bookseller with bookseller news? Send it to me here with the subject line “Bookseller News.”
I will include as many as I can in future editions.
Words to Write By
“I type most of my books for the first chapter or two - I use a manual typewriter for the first 50 pages or so - and then I move to the computer. It helps me keep the work lean so I don't end up spending 10 pages describing a leaf.”—James McBride
February 15, 2024
Out With the Old, In With All Sorts of Jazz
I once had a shrink tell me I needed to step into my magnificence. Well, my friends, consider this newsletter movement in that direction.
I’ve put to bed my old “One Writer’s Life” and replaced it with “Connie May Fowler’s InkBlossom News” because I’m at a point in my life in which comfort zones feel dangerous. I want to stretch, try new things, maybe fail, dust myself off, and fly. And I want you to come with me. With all the noise in today’s world, nurturing one another’s creative spirits—connection and support, not alienation and division—is more important than ever.
Under the InkBlossom canopy, you’ll find virtual and in-person retreats, conferences, and workshops; video chats about books, writing, and the writing life; and conversations with your favorite authors. Some of these ventures are already blooming while others are seeds tucked into rich, dark earth. Hopefully, together, we will grow them into something worthy of our collective brilliance.
Audre Lorde said, "Without Community there is no liberation." I agree with her and add: Without community we risk writing in the forlorn darkness of an echo chamber.
Think of InkBlossom as a gathering of creative souls where light outpaces shadow and where our words find form and meaning.
In-Person Literary Conclaves
In April, dive into your writing at an idyllic seaside getaway. Amid the surf song, you’ll write every morning and discuss your work in the afternoons with me and your fellow supportive writers.
In September, join me in Mount Dora (one of Florida’s highest points—not joking—and a gorgeous lakeside setting) for a week of manuscript workshops, revisions, craft talks, and more.
In October, we move west to the beautiful and literary-rich oasis of Santa Fe, New Mexico where you will write, workshop, and immerse yourself in all things literary.
Our writing labs are designed to support, instruct, and inspire. While we discuss missed opportunities and areas in need of reconsideration or polish, our community avoids mean-spirited, damaging rhetoric. We are all about lifting up, not tearing down.
Virtual Offerings: So many petals on this InkBlossom!
Monthly three-day virtual writing retreats!
Monthly special topic virtual workshops!
Pop-up prompts, chats with writing buddies, and more!
Don’t Forget
Writers are magicians.
Our words guide lost souls home (sometimes the souls are our own).
Our images resonate beyond imposed borders.
Our narratives navigate the rough and glorious terrains of our wild hearts.
InkBlossom is dedicated to helping writers hone their art and craft in an environment of vigorous compassion.
Getting Crafty
Our Patron Saint of Ascendant Prose, James Baldwin, compelled us to “Write a sentence as clean as bone.” This directive sounds simple, basic, but putting it into practice requires discipline, focus, and courage (kill those lovelies!).
I believe I have rewritten the opening paragraph of my novel-in-progress, The Direction of Last Things, eight trillion times: multiple paragraphs; one long ponderous sentence, several long ponderous sentences. Word crevasses and sinkholes and impenetrable thickets. I’ve tortured myself into knots, tossing and retrieving, and tossing again words, phrases, ruminations, and digressions.
Currently, I’m down to three tight sentences. Whittling the paragraph felt like a solo trek up Mount Everest. In February. But like a magical erasure, a clearing of clouds, as I ruthlessly trimmed, the book slowly emerged.
Yet, still, the paragraph, and surely the book, needs more shaping. I’m not going to lie. The process scares me (Can I do it?). But it’s also exhilarating (Yes, I can!). The most confident proclamation I can make is I think I’m getting to the mountain top.
I hope Saint James approves.
What I’m Reading
Praisesong for The Kitchen Ghosts, by my dear friend Crystal Wilkinson, is wholly beautiful: a treasure brimming with the sacred—memories and biscuits, hauntings and hot milk cake, conjurings and greens with pot likker. This is not a cookbook. It is not a memoir. It is not a poem. It is life.
Support Your Reading Habit
Are you like me and when you hear about a book you want to read, you grab the nearest pen and paper scrap (in my case, the back of an envelope) and scribble the title, only for it to be lost amid the shuffle of daily life? Here’s a nifty solution: a reading journal from the good folks at Papier.
Cribbed from the Papier website, the journal offers:
Space to review 32 books, with 4 pages per review
8 pages worth of reading wish lists for you to fill out
A tracker to note books you’ve borrowed and lent
Journaling prompts for thoughtful reviews or book club chats
Pages to write down your most-loved reads
An address list for favorite bookstores, websites and spots to read
Lists of book recommendations curated by the Papier team
And, you can feel good about this purchase because it’s ethically sourced and plastic-free.
A New Indie
The big, good news out of Florida is that Lauren Groff and her husband are opening an indie bookstore in Gainesville to help push back against the current book ban frenzy that, sadly, seems to be all the rage. The opening of The Lynx is an example of conviction in action. Thank you, Lauren!
Speaking of book banning and the need to stop it, please support the Florida Freedom to Read Project or a similar organization in your home state.
Share Your Good News
Do you have writing news you’d like to share with our community? If so, send it to me here with the subject line “Good News.”
Are you a bookseller with bookseller news? Send it to me here with the subject line “Bookseller News.”
I will include as many as I can in future editions.
Housekeeping Note
It has been quite a while since I sent out a newsletter and I’m sure things have changed for many of you. If you no longer wish to receive my news and tips, or if you are receiving this at multiple addresses, please let me know and I’ll take care of it right away!
Words to Write By
For a writer, there’s nothing as frightening as a blank page and only one way to dispel the paralyzing fear: write. This conundrum stems from Every word has to be perfect. Nonsense. Fretting over each word, phrase, sentence comes later, in revision. And so does the shine.
