Upcoming Writing Workshops in Albuquerque

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico


Dear Friends,

I'd forgotten how much I loved sharing my passion for writing with other writers until last month's workshop here in Albuquerque. You see, it had been a couple of years since I'd offered a full-fledged writing class or workshop -- partly because of my travels and partly because I'd been so focused on getting my own books out that there'd been little time to teach.

But June's event was so fulfilling, for myself and the participants, that I've decided to do it again.

More to the point, I've decided to make Albuquerque -- and New Mexico -- the hub of a new series of classes, workshop and, ultimately, retreats.

It wasn't easy to declare any place as "home" after my 30 months of full-time travel. But two years after having landed here at the end of those travels, Albuquerque has finally come to occupy that place in my heart. I'm home. And I want to do as much of my work here as possible.

For now, I have two Albuquerque workshops coming up:

• Birthing Your Book...Even If You Don't Know What It's About ~ July 18
So many of us know we have a book inside us but either aren't clear what it is or don't know how to start. Through a series of powerful exercises, I'll help connect you with the book that's been inside you all along and show you how to use that connection to get your book written.As well I'll offer you practical tools to get going and keep going...through to completion.

• The Call to Write: Answering the Voice of Your Muse ~ August 8
Bring your questions, issues and concerns about writing. And prepare to write -- naturally, spontaneously and from that deep place within you where your muse resides, waiting for her call to be answered. (By popular demand, this offering of The Call to Write will involve more hands-on writing than any previous version.) I've offered versions of this workshop over the years and it's always more about the people who turn up than any fixed curriculum -- which means that every Call to Write is different from its predecessors.

It doesn't matter what your genre or experience level is, these workshops will transform your creative process and revolutionize your creative life. You'll never feel the same about writing again!

Both Saturday workshops take place from 1-5pm in the Tramway/Candelaria area of Albuquerque's Northeast Heights.

And if you sign up for both by July 14, you'll pay only $99, a savings of up to 34%! July 14 is also your deadline to get into the Birthing Your Book workshop for $55, instead of the regular $75. (PayPal and all credit cards accepted.)

But call soon: Space is very limited and my June 20 Call to Write was sold out!

If you feel any pull toward joining us, I encourage you to honor it. So often, the call to participate only makes logical sense once you're in the midst of the experience. And each workshop will be a powerful, supportive, nurturing and accelerating experience. I hope to see you there.

Remember, space is limited. So register today.

Warm regards,
Mark David

P.S. My calendar of upcoming book-signings, classes, workshops and other events is always posted on my page at booktour.com.

Everything Old Is New Again

Wednesday, November 19 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Everything old is new again, as the Peter Allen lyric suggests. Here I am, back in Albuquerque, my unexpectedly brief journeying complete. And I move into a new rental here on Monday.

When I left town on September 30, I didn't know if I'd ever be back. All I knew was the call to the open road, a call I (once again) had no choice but to obey.

Through 40 days of driving, I traveled south and east into Texas, then back north into Louisiana, crossing it and the Mississippi before veering up through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado. After a pit stop in Albuquerque, I continued west into Arizona, then south toward San Diego and north to Sacramento.

That rainy night in Sacramento, dining with a minister friend and her husband (who, themselves, are planning a move to Albuquerque), I knew that Albuquerque was calling me home.

As if to emphasize the point -- and to remind me that I wasn't going back, I was moving forward -- I woke up two mornings later with "everything old is new again" playing in my head. (And in case I missed the message, the song reprised itself for me the following morning.)

I don't like the expression "coming full circle" because it suggests that we're returning to a place we've already been, having learned nothing and grown not at all. My preferred image is that of a spiral, where we return to a place along the same axis, but at a higher level of consciousness and understanding.

As I wrote in The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, "Each cycle’s completion returns you not to where you began but to a higher level of awareness, mastery, openness and trust." I wrote that about the creative process, but isn't life the ultimate creative process?

So here I am, ready to embark on my own version of the Peter Allen song. Everything old is new again.

For a start, I'm committed to returning to The StarQuest, the first of two projected sequels to my novel, The MoonQuest.

The StarQuest has been in my life for more than a decade, having begun to work its way out of me before The MoonQuest was finished (even if, at the time, I thought it was finished). I've worked on it in fits and starts since then and have yet to complete a first draft.

This week, I began reading through its 200-odd manuscript pages. The book is far from complete. But it is ready to be birthed, and I'm ready to be its midwife. Everything old is new again.

Another renewal is my relationship with the Sandia Mountains. This magical range, which marks the eastern boundary of Albuquerque, is a large part of what keeps calling me back to this place.

Like my previous home here, my new condo is in the Sandia foothills. As wonderful as my last location was (half a mile from a trailhead), the new one's is even better: nothing across from it but open land and mountain trails. Everything old is new again.

This past Sunday while at church, the passenger-side rear-view mirror assembly vanished from my car. I don't know whether it was an accident, vandalism or theft, but a way of looking back -- into the past -- was taken from me. A new mirror was installed yesterday. Everything old is new again.

As I was wondering this afternoon, in the midst of writing this piece, how I would be supported in this re-newed Albuquerque life, I received a phone call from a local magazine that is seeking an editor, its content similar to one I worked on in Toronto more than 15 years ago.

I don't know whether I'll get the job -- or will even want it if it's offered -- but it, too, suggests that everything old is new again.

The turn of the spiral is complete, and here I stand at the threshold of a new life that resembles the old one in surface details only. Where do I go from here? Across the threshold and into a beginning still veiled but replete with the promise that all new beginnings offer.

Once again, from The Voice of the Muse: "From silence to silence, word to word, trust to trust -- the spiral is an infinite one, carrying you from one beginning to the next and one ending to the next on a journey with no beginning or ending."

The spiral is an infinite one... How perfect that through my 40 days of travel I, somehow, unconsciously, drove an infinity symbol through those 10 states, with Albuquerque as its center point.

Photos (c) 2008 by Mark David Gerson: #1 Sandia foothills, Albuquerque, NM; #2 Myriad Gardens, Oklahoma City, OK; #3 Stone cairn, Meditation Mount, Ojai, CA; #4 Sandia foothills, Albuquerque, NM; #5 Winterville Mounds, near Greenville, MS.

More photos from the journey at "Forty Days on the Road."

Desert Spring

Friday, June 8 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

As I amble along a nature path in the foothills of Albuquerque's Sandia Mountains, I feel the stress and high anxiety of the day begin to dissolve.

It began this morning. In fact, I woke with it, with the unsettledness that comes of leaving two and a half months of what passes in my life for domesticity.

Today is the day the (relative) rootedness of a Santa Fe sublet makes way for a return to the mutability of a life in motion.

Today is the day that completes the printing and binding of The MoonQuest.

Today is the day one journey ends and another begins.

It's exciting, of course, but discomfitting too.


And so as my feet touch the feldspar, mica and quartz that comprise Sandia's granite, I'm grateful for the emotional grounding I always feel here. I'm grateful too for the explosions of brilliant color scattered through these desert highlands.

If you've never visited or lived in the desert, you probably think of it as not only dry but barren and colorless. Yet spring here in the high desert -- particularly after a wet winter -- brings with it not only infinite shades of green but the polychromatic splendor of desert flowers in bloom, their intensity heightened by the limited palette New Mexico normally offers.

The new growth and the vividness of the cactus flowers remind me that the same energy of renewal unfolding around me on my Sandia walk is also coming alive within me. Spring is here.

Sandia Photos by Mark David Gerson