Synergia Ranch

Santa Fe, NM

August 22 – 28, 2023

Join Bending Genres on a writing retreat in beautiful Santa Fe, NM.

To register, choose a room below and pay the $750 deposit. Note the full price of each room; we will be in touch with details on how to pay the balance.

The fee includes room and daily continental breakfasts with gourmet lunches and dinners, and all the writing retreat programming.

If you’d like to book your room with someone else, https://bendinggenres.com/contact-us.

About this retreat

The fine line between prose, poetry, and memoir will be explored during this multi-genre workshop. How can your work sing? Do your poems lack insightful narrative that can tell the deeper message, enrich their meaning? Are your stories too structured, too flat? Like mixing paint onto a canvas, the backdrop of this Synergia Ranch workshop will heighten exploration, and enable us to seek new modes of expression.

Vaughan has authored six published collections, and in each he blends genre, plays with form, collaborates, and modifies voices so that they carry beyond the page. His newest is Askew (Cowboy Jamboree, 2022). His work is risk-taking, nature inspired, and infused with the surroundings of environmental writing. His work has been compared to William Burroughs, and David Lynch. Vaughan will encourage you to try new hybrid forms, and look at your writing in alternative ways.

Tuite has authored four published collections and six chapbooks that rock the landscape between prose and poetry. Tuite’s newest is White Van (Unlikely Books, 2022). She is all about plunging into the deep waters. Joe Millar calls her work ‘Bukowski on Zoloft’. She will help you uncover those aspects of your writing that are hidden behind fear. You will activate your imagination, spark your creativity, and free your spontaneity during our retreat.

Vaughan and Tuite’s retreats are simple in format, yet potentially complex in effect. The group creates a genuinely safe environment in which ideas and work can be shared, and feedback is essential. Each writing day begins with a group discussion on a certain aspect of writing, which we term our “craft talk.” Vaughan and Tuite will read stories/poems/memoir pieces, as teaching examples, and deep conversations follow. Then we provide prompts each morning to fuel you to write into the deepest recesses of your being. Certain mornings we have group writing exercises to further the daily topic and offer you some new starts on fresh pieces.

Synergia Ranch is nothing but inspirational. You are surrounded by four major mountain ranges: the Ortiz, Sandia, Jemez, and Sangre de Christo mountains. This exquisite blue sky and adobe architecture are an ancient sacred space to write, reflect, and relax in. We meet every morning in a Geodesic Dome, designed by Buckminster Fuller, in the 1960s. Our exquisite chef, Marguerite, prepares three meals daily, and is prepared to handle every aspect of cuisine: meat, vegetarian, vegan, and more.

More than anything, you will have plenty of time every day to WRITE! This is a generative writing week. You will have the opportunity and inspiration to explore the unique challenges that writers face in writing a new piece each day. The retreat is ideal for writers of all levels of experience, from previously published writers to novice writers who are ready to launch into new terrain, experiment, fail and try again!

This is also an excellent workshop for writers who long to return to a project, or are currently immersed in something. Give yourself the incredibly precious gift of a week to write and to embrace or discover your own potential in an expansive, gorgeous oasis in Santa Fe, NM.