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Detailed List of Retreats

Keystone Memoir Retreat: Routes To Meaning

Teacher: Dawn Garisch
Cost: 5 days accommodation + R400 surcharge
Dates: Tuesday 18 October 2022 - Sunday 23 October 2022

dawn garischWe all have a story to tell from our own lives about how we became who we are. Stories about the way we were born, or about how someone helped us. About how we got ill, or overcame a terrible loss. Stories about how someone we loved hurt us, or how a political or spiritual circumstance almost broke us. Stories about how we were bullied, about how an accident changed the course of our lives, or about how we were able to make a difference in someone else’s life. These stories are often invisible to others. They might still influence the way we think and feel in ways we don’t fully understand. Writing about your own life can help you connect with the story you are living and it can help to heal or manage the effects of trauma. It is a powerful way for us to communicate and to grow compassion for ourselves and for each other. The tools we need to write effectively are also tools that help us live more creatively and less anxiously. Whether you are writing fiction or plays or poetry, life writing skills can help you deepen observation of our human preferences, habits and tendencies, and how they impact on ourselves, other people and the natural environment. During the course we will find refreshing approaches to assist us in putting our personal stories down on the page. Beginner writers are welcome.

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Dawn Garisch has had seven novels, two collections of poetry, a non-fiction work and a memoir published. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in anthologies, journals and magazines. She has had a short play and short film produced, and has written for television and newspapers. Three of her novels have been published in the UK. In 2007 her poem Blood Delta was awarded the DALRO prize. In 2010 Trespass was short-listed for the Commonwealth prize for fiction in Africa, and in 2011 her poem Miracle won the EU Sol Plaatjie Poetry Award. In 2013 her short story What To Do About Ricky won the NAF-funded Short.Sharp.Story competition. Her novel Accident was published by Modjaji in 2017 and her adaptations of her novels Accident and Trespass were staged. She published her latest book Breaking Milk in 2020. She is interested in trans-disciplinary work in science and art, and between different art forms and teaches life writing and creative method courses. She is a practising medical doctor and lives in Cape Town.