Spring workshops with Writing Ourselves Whole!

(please feel welcome to forward this information! thank you!)

Writing Ourselves Whole
Spring 2010 Workshops


This April, re-engage with the deep-rooted and transformative power of writing!

Join us in one of our exercise-initiated and non-judgmental AWA writing workshops:

Write Whole: Survivors Write
Monday evenings, 4/12 - 6/7
Open to all women survivors of sexual trauma

Declaring Our Erotic
Tuesday evenings, 4/13 - 6/8
Open to all (18+, please)

o In the Write Whole: Survivors Write workshop, you'll gather with other survivors of sexual trauma to create new art and new beauty out of life's difficult and complicated realities. Learn to trust the flow of your own writing, and receive immediate feedback about the power of your words!
Remember: identity categories like 'woman' and 'survivor' are self-defined!

o In the Declaring Our Erotic workshop, you'll try your hand at some explicit erotic writing, and, in so doing, will get more comfortable exploring and talking about sexual desires, explore the varied and complex aspects of sexuality and desire, receive strong and focused feedback about your new writing!

No previous writing experience necessary! Workshops held in San Francisco in an accessible space, a half-block from BART and on many MUNI lines. Spaces are still available, though limited, and pre-registration is required! Fee for each eight-week workshop is $225-300, sliding scale.

To register or with any questions, contact Jen at jennifer (at) writingourselveswhole.org.
For more information, please visit www.writingourselveswhole.org!

Why sexuality and sexual trauma writing together, in the same ‘house’?

I still panic, sometimes, talking about the fact that I lead both erotic writing and sexual trauma survivors writing workshops; there’s still that ingrained sense, for me, that these two things just don’t go together. I don’t think I probably need to explain this as often as I think I need to – and yet, every now and again, I dive back into the why.

Why sexuality and sexual trauma writing together, in the same ‘house’? Restorying our sexuality lets us come back here, into our bodies, the site of trauma, the site of violence against us if we are survivors of sexual trauma. Restorying, writing our desire, our history and too our now longing, re-embodies us in a safe-ish way (writing’s not completely without risk, of course: if the writing is to carry and convey the depth and breadth and truth of a story, an experience or possibility and that means the writing needs to be embodied and that’s a big fucking deal for sexual trauma survivors – embodiment). Writing is a way to settle into ourselves, slow back inside our skin – not the only way. One way.

When we write desire – any desire: fantasy or fiction or what just happened this afternoon – we are back in our skin, we experience the want, we feel its flesh and tingle and joy, and, too, struggle and ache and loss and fear. We can write, and so we can feel, a body free of flashbacks – and, too, we are deeply familiar with the truth of an erotic desire riddled with holes and loss and so we can describe it fully, gorgeously, achingly real and hot.

We who are sexual trauma survivors know how to embody another’s ostensible desire, because that was our job. What erotic writing can allow us to do is come into ourselves, our own wonders and imaginings – allows us to smell and taste ourselves again, or for the first time.

That’s where these two – sexual trauma and erotic writing – come together for me, are necessary together for me. In writing about sexual trauma, we can forget - we can wish to forget - about the weight of erotic desire. We can want to wipe it from our skin because that very desire sends blood pulsing through the body that was raped, makes flush the landscape of loss and terror, and who wouldn’t want to forget that place?

But we inhabit the scene of the crime. We can't ever fully vacate this place, this body, not while we're living: and an embodied erotics, a deeply creative lust for the world, was our birthright, long before we were born. We deserve to settle back fully into our bodies again. One way I've worked myself back up to the edges of my skin and beyond is through writing it.

We can claim now the heavy trail of longing, bent or shaped by our survival, we can eroticize shame, if we need to, we can claim a chosen pain because consent changes everything. We can write exactly the sex we want and deserve, and when we write it we embody it, and when we embody it, that’s a reclamation. That’s a restorying. That’s a restoration. What was slashed and burned can always take new life again, given time and space from the trauma. We tend this wound, this body, this site. Erotic writing can be damn joyful – and that joy is the tilling, the rainwater, the harvest

12/17: Holiday Dirt: fecund new erotica! A benefit for writing ourselves whole...

Please help to spread the word! xoxoxo


Writing Ourselves Whole presents
~Holiday Dirt: fecund new erotica~
a benefit reading and celebration!


With special guest Carol Queen!
Featuring Alex Cafarelli, Lou Vaile, Amy Butcher, Renee Garcia, Jenn Meissonnier, Blyth Barnow and Jess Katz!

Burlesque! Sweet treats! Chapbooks!

When: Thursday, December 17, 7:30 SHARP
Cost: $10-50: sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds
Location: Center for Sex and Culture, 1519 Mission Street (between 11th and South Van Ness), San Francisco, CA 94103

Your winter holidays shaping up to be a bit too wholesome? Never fear -- join Jen Cross as she presents these fierce new works from the Writing Ourselves Whole workshops, sharp and sexy writing that will delightfully sully your holiday spirit and open your mind to all sorts of new reindeer/dreidel games!

Celebrate risky writing and readings -- let us inspire your erotic imagination.

~~ Can't make the reading on 12/17? You can still help writing ourselves whole! We are raising funds to pay for our workshop space: whatever you can give will help! Click the link/button below to use PayPal to send your donations. Thank you so much!

A fundraiser for Writing Ourselves Whole (Declaring Our Erotic/Write Whole workshops), which exists in the service of transforming trauma and/or struggles around sexuality into art, and creating spaces in which individuals may come to recognize the artist/writer within.

'indelible erotic loss'

A man at the Indy Arts Expo this weekend stopped at Fresh!'s table (we were there to promote Affirmative Acts Coaching!), and this man and I talked a little bit about the writing workshops. I said I did a little bit of blogging, about sexuality, about sexual trauma, about writing as a transformative practice -- he was very interested in what sorts of sex blogging I did, said, "I'm trying to figure out what about sex you write about."

Here is what I want to have said: I write about sex in the aftermath of sexual trauma, I write about the scarred desire that remains. I write about that crystalline brilliance and shame. I write about indelible erotic loss, the way it fills our hands sometimes at the same time we are touching someone... I write about the madness of that split, the surrender and joy of it, too. I may not be what you'd expect of a 'sex' blogger.

Upcoming workshops with Jen & Writing Ourselves Whole -- August 2009!

Read on for more information about the upcoming Declaring Our Erotic and Write Whole workshops with Jen & Writing Ourselves Whole!
heart power!

Declaring Our Erotic-Reclaiming Our Sexuality
Eight Tuesday evenings, beginning 8/11/09
Open to queer women survivors of sexual trauma!

Have you been thinking about exploring some new edges in your writing? Are there longings you'd like to find language for?

Now's the time: Changing our language can change the way we understand ourselves and our desires! Once again, I'm opening this workshop explicitly to queer women survivors of sexual trauma who want to continue the process of reclaiming their sexuality.

In this erotic writing group, we write in response to exercises that engage or invoke various aspects of our erotic, sexual and sensual selves, in a safe and confidential group of peers. Get more comfortable writing about sexual desires, receive strong and focused feedback about your new writing, explore the varied and complex aspects of sexuality and identity, all while trying your hand at some explicit erotic writing!

In these 8 weeks, you'll create an exciting body of fresh and (often) surprising new writing, and my very well find that your experience of your erotic voice/erotic power has been transformed.


Write Whole: Survivors Write
Eight Monday evenings, beginning 8/10/09.
Open to all women survivors of sexual trauma!

Transform your relationship with your writing -- and with yourself. For survivors in particular, writing freely in supportive and attentive community opens us up to the possibility of being fully heard in all of our expression, creative and otherwise!

In this workshop, write in response to exercises chosen to elicit deep-heart writing, and deal with such subjects as: body image, family/community, sexuality, dreams, love, faith, and more. We create new art and new beauty out of the difficult and complicated realities of our lives.

You'll be encouraged to trust the flow of your writing voice, and receive immediate feedback about the power of your words!

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All workshops held in an accessible, downtown San Francisco office, near Powell Street and Market - close to Bart & Muni.

Spaces are limited and pre-registration is required.

Fee for each 8 week workshop is $250.

To register, email: jennifer@writingourselveswhole.org.

About your facilitator: Jen Cross is a widely published freelance writer. She's a queer incest survivor who used writing as a transformative and integral part of her own healing process. She's a certified AWA Facilitator and is currently leading workshops at UCSF for folks living with cancer.

More info: www.writingourselveswhole.org.

Note: These workshops are open to individuals who identify on the woman/female spectrum and who also self-define as survivors of sexual trauma. Categorizations of gender can be highly problematic and I believe that both "women" and "survivor" are self-defined! Please don't hesitate to contact me if you're wondering whether you should attend or not.

March retreat on 3/14 and Spring workshops!

Don't forget: there's a Saturday Write Whole retreat on 3/14, and the spring workshops begin on 4/6 and 4/7! More information below -- visit www.writingourselveswhole.org for more information or to sign up!

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Spring 2009 AWA-model writing workshops
with Jen Cross/Writing Ourselves Whole!

** Write Whole: Survivors Write - Saturday Intensive!
An all-day writing retreat
Saturday, March 14, 2009
9:00am-4:00pm.
(Check-in and registration/continental breakfast 8:30-9:00am)
Light lunch also provided.
~ Treat yourself to a day of good writing, good food, and good community! For each of our all-day Saturday writing retreats, we gather in the morning for coffee and some home-baked breakfast, and then write through the rest of the morning. After a break for a light lunch, we keep on diving deep into our work through the afternoon! We create new art and new beauty out of the complicated realities of our lives. Open to all women who identify in as survivors of sexual trauma.


**Write Whole: Survivors Write**
Special 5-week workshop meets Monday evenings, beginning April 6.

~ Gather with other women survivors of sexual trauma in this workshop, and write in response to exercises chosen to elicit deep-heart writing, and deal with such subjects as: body image, family/community, sexuality, dreams, love, faith, and more. You'll be encouraged to trust the flow of your own writing, and receive immediate feedback about the power of your words! Open to all women who identify in as survivors of sexual trauma.



**Declaring Our Erotic**
Special 5-week workshop meets Tuesday evenings, beginning April 7.
Open to folks of all sexualities and all genders!

~ Are you ready to explore some new edges in your writing? Are there longings you would like to find language for? Now's the time: you may very well surprise yourself with the depth and power of your writing!

This is a deliberately-diverse erotic writing workshop open to folks of all sexualities and all genders. For anyone who's ever thought about writing erotic stories - now's the time to get some of those fantasies down on the page! In these workshops, you will get more comfortable exploring and talking about sexual desires, receive strong and focused feedback about your new writing, explore the varied and complex aspects of sexuality and desire in a fun and confidential environment, and, of course, try your hand at some explicit erotic writing! In addition, if you choose, you may share your manuscripts with peer writers for well-rounded response to your erotic work.


All workshops held in San Francisco in an accessible space, a half-block from BART and on many MUNI lines. Spaces are still available, though limited, and pre-registration is required! Fee for 5 weeks is $175; fee for Saturday retreat is $100. To register or for more information, email jennifer@writingourselveswhole.org or visit
www.writingourselveswhole.org!


About your facilitator: Jen Cross is a freelance writer whose work has been published in many anthologies and periodicals. Jen has facilitated writing workshops since 2002. She received her MA in Transformative Language Arts from Goddard College, and is a certified facilitator of the Amherst Writers & Artists method (http://www.amherstwriters.com/).

ERC: something else that gives me hope!

Last night was the first Erotic Reading Circle of 2009. We had a gorgeous gathering of writers, readers & listeners at the Center for Sex and Culture, some ERC regulars, some newbies, some in-between! The writing was varied and hot, layered and good and challenging and fun. Thank you, writers!

I felt last night the joy about people coming in to a roomful of strangers and god reading their erotica, their secret bright desires, their difficult gorgeous art -- people *so* put themselves on the line. It's beautiful in ways I still struggle for words to describe: words like hopefulness and bravery.

This is a risk every time and people take it. They take that risk. We do. And so that's what's giving me hope right now -- that risk has bravery in it, honest, self-confidence and shaking hands, a faith in art and craft and a passion for language and play, a willingness to listen and be heard. These things are what we need right now to keep this world changing, and so I am grateful!

Next ERC is on Feb 25 -- all are welcome, even if you just want to come on down and listen!

Podcast Answers - Day 2: Transformative writing

As I mentioned on Monday (here, you remember), I'm going to post longer, more well-thought-out (maybe!) answers to the questions that Britt Bravo posed to me during our Arts and Healing Network podcast conversation last week. Here's our second installation!

The second question on the list:
2. On your site, you describe [your workshops] as “transformative writing” workshops. How are they transformative?

Transformative writing is writing that changes you in the process of its creation. A dictionary gives one definition of transform as “to change completely for the better.” Another definition: “to convert one form of energy to another.”

And for the word transformation one of the definitions is: a complete change, usually into something with an improved appearance or usefulness.” Another? “A sudden changing of a stage set that takes place in sight of the audience.” Yes – that’s what we’re talking about here.

(In looking these up, I’ve just learned that there’s such a thing as transformational grammar, a phrase I find extremely exciting but which I’m not (necessarily! I can’t actually say for sure) talking about here).

Writing that’s transformative is writing that surprises the writer as it’s emerging, either with respect to form, content, structure, or some other element. It’s writing through which the writer maybe learns something about hirself* on the other end (even if the writing is fiction—that teaches us about our capacity as writers/artists). In my experience, there’s much writing that’s transformative – freewriting as a method works well for me, when I can let the writing come, can get the editor out of the way and discover after I’m done what it was that I was trying to say.

Dara Lurie, a writer and workshop leader in New York, describes transformative writing as, "a process of refining and clarifying ones own thoughts and actions through the conscious use of language." ( from her website). I like this a lot! I initially met the word 'transformative' in conjunction with writing when I learned about the Transformative Language Arts program at Goddard College, which describes itself as being "is for students interested in the intentional use of the written, spoken and sung word for individual and community growth, development, celebration, and transformation." (more info here...)

There’s also writing that, because of its structure/creation, is transformative for the reader: this is writing that gives us as readers the chance to discover something about/for ourselves as we take in the work. (I’m going to name two names here, for me: Gloria Anzaldua – Borderlands/La Frontera; Jeannette Winterson – just about anything).

This all ties into my understanding of an erotic writing practice or process: writing that is risky, genre-defying, full of metaphors, stream of consciousness, deeply connected and unconsciously-driven. An erotic writing process is distinct (though not always separate from) writing that is erotic in content (sex stories & the like), a writing session in which one engages in the erotic/organic process of freewriting, an experience of writing that brings one well into the paths of one’s inner labyrinths. Over time, through the use of this practice, we are not only able to improve our writing, but we are also able to witness ourselves in the process of changing. “One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body…We must continue to open and trust in our own voice and process. Ultimately, if the process is good, the end will be good. You will get good writing” (Nataile Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones).

I’m talking about the fact that the process of writing itself can be an erotic experience, if we can engage a definition of “erotic” that’s closer to Audre Lorde’s (“I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way. And when I say living I mean it as that force which moves us toward what will accomplish real positive change.” About Audre Lorde) or Alicia Ostriker’s (“Metaphor is the erotic element in language.” Ostriker, Alicia. “A Meditation on Metaphor.” By Herself: Women Reclaim Poetry, edited by Molly McQuade.).

Transforamtive writing is rich and risky – it takes chances – it’s not driven by our inner editor. It lets the hand, the writing, do the writing and gets our head out of the mix, at least for the first draft—the head comes in later! (No pun intended – let’s move on.) Sometimes the results of this kind of writing are very linear. Sometimes the results are an almost surreal conglomeration of verbs, nouns, and adjectives with no distinct structure, conjugation or form—often the resulting writing is somewhere between these extremes, and every time, every time, though, this is writing that brings listeners to the edge of their seats, emotionally resonant, writing you don’t want to end, even if the content, the topic, is difficult or hard.

The AWA workshop method, as defined by Pat Schneider, is an especially good container for, especially encouraging of, transformative writing: writing that takes risks, that rides on the edges of control, that opens us to the possibility of change. It's what makes possible us writing ourselves whole!

What do you think about all this? What might "transformative writing" mean to you? What do you think of or envision when you hear/read that phrase? Let me know!


* hir/ze – these are gender-neutral, all-encompassing pronouns; more aesthetically-pleasing (and broader!) to me than “him/her-self,” etc,

Body Heat: queer femme tour kicks off tomorrow, 4/3

I have the great privilege of being a part of the Body Heat: Femme Porn Tour, which kicks off here in San Francisco tomorrow, 4/3, at the Center for Sex and Culture at 7pm.

Femmes, as some of us know, still bear an interesting burden of invisibility -- our right to call ourselves dykes is called into question sometimes even still, because we don't bear the masculine markers of more "visible" dykes (which turns into an interesting paradox), and our sexual agency is still, I think, considered to be determined by our lovers, rather than by we ourselves.

There are LOTS of fierce femme writers & performers who are calling into question these and other misunderstandings around femmeness, and I get to be on tour with three of them -- Vixen Noir (aka Veronica Combs of the incredible Liquid Fire fame), Celestina Pearl (di-va writer, filmmaker & performer!) and kathleen delaney (spoken word artist out of Atlanta & a dear friend from back when I lived on the East Coast!)

More info below -- I'll be blogging about the tour here and at my myspace blog: www.myspace.com/writingourselveswhole

Wish us luck, good driving, and sleep! :)

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~Body Heat: A femme porn tour~

Body Heat is a collective of fierce, sassy, irreverent Femme artists setting
ablaze performance art communities and smashing Femme stereotypes. Porn, Kink,
Smut, Erotica - Body Heat is not reclaiming our sex so much as OWNING it.

We will turn you on.

We will challenge all of your gender, sex, feminist, social, & political boundaries & assumptions.

We will entertain the hell out of you & we will leave you panting, begging, dripping for more.

April 3, 2008 @ The Center for Sex & Culture, San Francisco, CA.
April 4 @ The Rubber Rose, San Diego, CA.
April 6 @ Rag Tag Cinema, Columbia, MO.
April 7 @ Chicago -- Location TBA
April 8 @ Pi Bar, Minneapolis, MN.
April 9 @ A Women's Touch, Milwaukee, WI.
April 10 @ Havana, Columbus, OH.
April 11 @ Mount Holyoke, Northampton, MA.
April 12 @ Truth Serum hosts @ Lily Pad Gallery, Boston, MA
April 13 (2 shows) @ MIKO & Brown University, Providence, RI.
April 14 on Diana Cage's Radio Show SIRIUS in NYC, NY
April 15 @ Tritone, Philly, PA.
April 16 @ Phase 1, Washington, DC
April 17 @ The Eyedrum, Atlanta, GA.
April 19 @ The Jolie Rouge Asheville, NC.

Spread the word and bring your friends! Visit http://www.myspace.com/femmeporntour for more info!

Upcoming events!

Feb is turning out to be a busy month around these parts! Come on down for one or more of these events in San Francisco:

Feb 15: Open Mic at the Exiles!
Keep that V-day energy moving! Gina De Vries and I will be the features at this first ever kinky and erotic open mic sponsored by the Exiles! Open to all Exiles members and guests. 5 min per performer, signup at 7:30, program begins at 8. For more info, visit The Exiles online (http://www.theexiles.org/).

Feb 16: Philosophy/Art Salon: What is Erotic?
Join us for a Socratic dialogue on the question: What makes for erotic art? Philosopher-at-Large Rita Alfonso, Ph.D., will be joined by erotic Writer Jen Cross and visual artist Dorian Katz for a brief show-and-tell followed by philosophical discussion. At Femina Potens, 2199 Market St. at Sanchez, SF. Admission is $10-$25 sliding scale. (www.feminiapotens.org)

Feb 27: Monthly Erotic Reading Circle at the Center for Sex and Culture, 1519 Mission Street, Suite 1, SF. Admission $1-5, no one turned away. (www.centerforsexandculture.org)

March 8: New Erotica Reading at the Center for Sex and Culture.
Join recent and veteran Declaring Our Erotic writers as they share their brave, blistering and brilliant new writing! More details to come: watch this space!

April 3-April 20: Jen joins the Body Heat: Femme Porn Tour (image heavy/prob. not work safe) as we read and riot across these peculiarly united states. Opening stop: Thursday, April 3 at the Center for Sex and Culture. Next stop: San Diego -- warn your friends! We're coming to their town...

And then, of course, the Spring workshops get started!

More info about these events coming soon!