Who: Cila Warncke.

Where: Current location, London.

What: Cila’s an Anglo-American writer, journalist and occasional barista.

She’s living her dream by writing a book about people who live their dreams.

In Her Words:

I am still trying to wrap my head around La Muse and figure out what happened there — all I know is I arrived feeling drained, empty, jaded and end-of-tether and left feeling full. Of ideas, optimism, laughter, life, and inspiration.

What you’ve fostered in your mountain stronghold is magical. There, in the silence, I heard the things I needed to hear, and encountered ideas I was ready to embrace. Thank you, especially, for the interview. It got me past what I was stuck on about the book. You are right: it isn’t a book about running away at all, but a book about running towards… Now I just need a new title.

Who: Gerard Marconi.

Where:  Maryland, United States.

What: Jerry earned his master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University and spent more than thirty years as a teacher and administrator in arts education.

He studied fiction writing in seminars and workshops with writers such as Lee K. Abbott, Roxana Robinson, Jennifer Haigh, and T. Greenwood. His short stories have appeared in The Chattahoochee Review, The Tuscarora Review, and The Summerset Review.

The first draft of Jerry’s recently published novel Gods and Heroes was written at La Muse.

In His Words:

It (Gods and Heroes) draws heavily on my knowledge of my native city, Baltimore, as well as my background in the arts. It’s a novel of linked stories that follows two characters from childhood through adolescence into adulthood, with a provocative look at love, sex, and religion.

It’s set in a blue collar neighborhood of Baltimore during the 60′s and 70′s and it unfolds cinematically with short chapters told from several points of view about how two young people attempt to wrench meaning from adversity and find happiness together despite their differences.

The novel is available at Booklocker.com and Amazon.com both as a print version and in e-book format.

Jerry is currently working on a collection of short stories that will be published next year.

Who: Dorothy Johnston.

Where: Canberra, Australia.

What: Dorothy’s an award winning Australian novelist. She’s written eight novels, one of which, The Trojan Dog, won the ACT Book of the Year prize in 2001. She has also written a collection of short stories, The Division of Love.

She was born in Geelong, Victoria and trained as a teacher at the University of Melbourne, later working as a researcher in education.

In Her Words:

(Dorothy wrote this for the Sisters in Crime newsletter in Australia after she got back from her retreat here)

I arrived at Rydges Hotel early in October dazed and jet lagged, having just got off the plane from France. I still regret the timing, which prevented me from participating in SheKilda as fully as I would have liked. But La Muse, the writers’ retreat where I’d been staying, was so enjoyable that I’d like to spread the word. Home to the retreat is a beautiful stone manor house, the newer bits dated the middle of the seventeenth century, and looking out across a steep, tree-covered valley. The village is called Labastide Esparbairenque and is tiny (35 permanent inhabitants) and unspoilt. It’s situated in the mountains, twenty kilometres from Carcassonne. On a clear day, you can see across to Spain.

I wrote the best part of a novella while I was there. For the first few nights I was wide awake at 3AM, and while I lay listening to the owls in the valley, I suddenly saw what my main characters would have to do and where their actions would lead them.

I don’t know about inspiration for specific crime stories, but since returning to Australia I’ve been thinking of trying my hand at the closed company of a writers’ retreat. Then there are the villager inhabitants themselves, thirty-five being a perfectly manageable number. I learnt, amongst other things, that they have their own special version of the poison pen letter. Of course, it helps if your main character speaks French, and I found the surrounding countryside great for brushing mine up. The people in the Languedoc region speak a very growly French, deep in their throats; and there are the hunters, too, in the autumn and early winter, who scour the mountain sides with their baying dogs, and whose collective demeanour brings to mind the big bad wolf.

Insults aside, the La Muse directors are charming people, the house a dream, and walks in the woods and along the mountain streams perfect for the contemplation of dark deeds. And the local history – Labastide is in the middle of Cathar country, a stronghold of the Cathar, or Albegensian heretics who were finally exterminated by the Inquisition – is blood-soaked and violent enough to satisfy any criminal imagination. Retreats are for three weeks and there’s heaps more information at La Muse.

Who: Tanya Byrne

Where: London, England

What: Best to let Tanya describe herself:

In Her Words:

Tanya Byrne was born in London and studied in Surrey, where she still lives with her cat who goes by several names, none of which he actually answers to. After eight years working for BBC Radio, she left to write her debut novel, Heart-Shaped Bruise, which is out next year.

She has a weakness for boys with guitars, drinks far too much tea and even though her mother tells her not to, she always talks to strangers.

And here’s what she had to say about  and La Muse:

This is the novel (her debut novel Heart-Shaped Bruise) I started while I was with you and I just wanted to say thank you for offering me the time and space I needed to begin telling this story. I’m so excited and can’t wait to get writing the next one.

Heart-Shaped Bruise will be published in May 2012 by Headline. (Headline also bought up the rights to the sequel.)

The story is about Emily Koll, the most notorious inmate of Archway Young Offenders Institution. Through her journals, she relates the story of how far she went to get revenge on the girl whose testimony sent her father to prison.

Feb. 26th -March 15th

Join Jill Satterfield MBC/RYT-500 founder of Vajra Yoga for a 200 hour Yoga Alliance certified teacher training at La Muse.

Vajra Yoga + Meditation integrates Buddhist meditation and philosophy directly into the practice of yoga. It is contemplative, contemporary and practical.

Through the direct experience of the body as the home for the mind and heart- physically and energetically – we can arrive at a state of full well-being and self-knowledge. If you have been seeking a practice that is meditative, personal, compassionate and sane, we invite you to join us. Whether you are interested in teaching in a yoga studio, on meditation retreats, a hospital, school, nursing home or just delving more deeply into a meditation and yoga practice, this is for you.

What the 200 – Hour Training Offers:

Meditation: Develop an established and sustainable meditation practice.  The practices you’ll learn are drawn from the Buddhist Vipassana and Tibetan traditions.

Yoga: Attain a deep experiential wealth of knowledge of the foundational yoga postures: standing poses, inversions, hip openers, backbends, twists and balance postures. Develop a personal practice that allows you to self prescribe depending on your needs.

Breath Techniques: Know why you breathe, where you do, and where you don’t. Increase your capacity for breath and experience the interdependence of breath, mind and heart.

Visualization Techniques: Harness the heart and mind to create wellness and deeper inquiry. Turn visualizations into actualizations.

Inner and Outer Alignment: Study of physical, structural anatomy, as well as energetic and subtle  alignment.  This includes practice with the Central Channel and subtle Bhandha’s. Learn how to diagnose and prescribe poses that are useful for a variety of needs – physical, energetic and emotional.

The Psychology of the Body: Yoga and meditation as therapeutic interventions.

Verbal and Physical and Poetics of Teaching: How to develop kind and direct language skills using artful adjustments and metaphors to meet people where they are.

Compassion Practices: Develop compassion, and ways to contribute to your community through compassionate, skillful action.

Meditation and Yoga for Communities in Need: Apply these traditions and techniques to work with specific populations. Teach those with living with chronic pain and illness, PTSD and at-risk youth.

Typical daily schedule

8 am Wake up

8:30-9 Breakfast

10-1 Practice

1-2 Lunch

3-6:30 Practice and Q + A with Jill

6:30-7:30 Dinner

*-9 Community gathering, videos, sharing (optional)

Fees:

Yoga Workshop:

1500 Euros.

Accommodation:

Calliope: 1215 Euros (queen-size double, private salon, ensuite toilet, spa-style bath, shower)

Erato: 1070 Euros (double with ensuite toilet, bath and shower)

Clio: 1015 Euros (double with ensuite toilet, bath and shower)

Euterpe: 970 Euros (double with ensuite shower)

Thalia: 1015 Euros (double with ensuite shower)

Melpomene: 915 Euros (double with shared toilet and shower)

Check out the rooms here!

Accommodation fee includes:

• Very few spaces available, which means an amazing student/teacher ratio.
• Local transportation (airport pickup, a trip to the grocery store on the way up to La Muse, and departure drop off).
• Non participatory spouses welcome. There is a 25% double occupancy fee for couples.
• Participants shop for and prepare their own food.
• Workshop includes about 125 contact hours with Jill. Then, there will be reading, homework assignments, home practice , and a short video that everyone will have to submit of them teaching a class.

We look forward to meeting you!

Email us now for availability!

Who: Marilyn Gaffney.

Where: Westmeath, Ireland.

What: Marilyn is a visual artist and John O’Leary award winner.

She obtained a First Class Honours degree from Sligo IT.

She is currently studying Masters Fine Art at National College of Art and Design, Dublin.

In Her Words:

I am interested in psychology of the unconscious in relation to people’s reactions to situations and in particular, traumatic events.  I am highlighting people’s reactions to events that may have happened to them but are suppressed within them.  These are lost under the realms of the unconscious and therefore may not be apparent.  How a person responds and interacts unlocks some part of the repressed.

 

I visually interpret a person’s reaction in a scene.  This person may be passive or dominant, acting out or in control of a situation; consensual or not.  The translucent materials I use relate to realms of the unconscious.   I am especially influenced by the French landscape and its people having spent some time there.  The places when merged are like a dream where locations join and become surreal.  This is the backdrop of my work where superimposed drawings and prints of figures fill the scene.  The silhouettes of the work can be described as fragments of stories or an overcast cloud of a repressed memory or dream.

La Muse offered me the time and space to create works that reflect my interests, being surrounded by beautiful landscape and supportive people.

 

Rachel Ephraim is a creative writing instructor for Writopia Lab, a non-profit organization that holds writing workshops for kids 8-18.

She is also Founder and Director of FreeBird Workshops, a grassroots workshop for adults in Brooklyn, NY.

She is currently getting her M.F.A. from Columbia University and is working on her first novel, which is getting weirder and weirder every day.

When she was last here at La Muse she wrote the short story “Presents” which recently got published in The Barcelona Review.

Living an Inspired Life Yoga Retreat:

February 2-9

In Her Words:

Space in the heart, mind and body allows for creativity to blossom, ideas to flow – choices to be seen. This delicious spaciousness is more readily accessed when the body, mind and heart are drawn together, and synthesized in communication. Through the practice of yoga, meditation, visualization and breath – we’ll dip into our completely free selves, our inner most expansive view – this is where a creative life, full of choices and the joy in having them arises from.

About Jill:

Jill Satterfield was named one of the “four leading Buddhist and Yoga teachers in the country” by the Shambhala Sun Magazine and is a pioneer in the field of mind body awareness. She has been teaching and consulting for over 20 years.

Jill is the founder of Vajra Yoga & Meditation, a synthesis of yoga and Buddhism that combines meditation, yoga postures, visualization and contemplation practices.

She is also the founder and Director of the School for Compassionate Action: Meditation, Yoga and Education for Communities in Need and Those Who Serve Them, a not for profit that trains teachers and offers classes to at-risk youth, people suffering with chronic pain and illnesses, PTSD, and addictions.

Jill turned to meditation and yoga 30 years ago to successfully heal from a debilitating physical condition coupled with acute chronic pain while in art school. In 1992, she extended her exploration of the integral relationship of the mind and body through the study of Buddhism. Jill is on the founding faculty of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Mindfulness for Yoga Training and the Kripalu Institute’s Integral Leadership Program for young adults. Jill was scholar and teacher in residence at the Kripalu Center in 2004. She has been featured in the New York Times, Crains, NY Post, MORE, Self, Marie Claire, Tricycle and Yoga Journal amongst others.

Fees:

Yoga Workshop:

375 Euros.

Accommodation:

Calliope: 795 Euros (queen-size double, private salon, ensuite toilet, spa-style bath, shower)

Erato: 550 Euros (double with ensuite toilet, bath and shower)

Clio: 595 Euros (double with ensuite toilet, bath and shower)

Euterpe:  550 Euros (double with ensuite shower)

Thalia: 550 Euros (double with ensuite shower)

Melpomene: 495 Euros (double with shared toilet and shower)

Check out the rooms here!

Accommodation fee includes:

• Very few spaces available, which means an amazing student/teacher ratio.
•  Local transportation (airport pickup, a trip to the grocery store on the way up to La Muse, and departure drop off).
• Non participatory spouses welcome. There is a 25% double occupancy fee for couples.
• Participants shop for and prepare their own food.

We look forward to meeting you!

Email us now for availability!

Who: Rebecca Clay Haynes

Where: Santa Fe, New Mexico until mid-December. Rebecca recently ran away from home and is traveling between global writer/artist residencies on a low-cost literary and spiritual quest. Southeast Asia next spring, Europe for the summer and South America next fall.

What: A longtime journalist, Rebecca now focuses on writing fiction and, in particular, short stories. Three have so far appeared in small literary journals and she plans eventually to collect them all into a published book.

Rebecca is also studying and finding inspiration from the tradition, craft and subject matter of women short story writers in each country she visits. At the same time, she is slowly writing a non-fiction book about her process of writing and travel.

In her own words:

La Muse was my third residency last summer and among the most satisfying and productive. Whether it was the pure water from The Source or the company of so many talented writers and artists, including John and Kerry, La Muse helped me take my writing further than ever before. The library, terrace, my bedroom, and even the kitchen – I miss them all. Merci infiniment pour tout ce que vous avez fait pour moi!

You can check out Rebecca’s Inky Fresh Press interview on global residencies here .

Who: Tadhg Ó Dúshláine.

Where: Kerry and Maynooth, Ireland.

What: Tadgh is a great poet who writes in Irish and talks in English when he has to.

He’s also the head of the Irish department at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

In His Words:

What do you consider most valuable about your time at La Muse?

The totality of the ambience -  location, discipline, collegiality  – all conducive to getting the job done.

Tell us, in a sentence or two, about the project you were focused on while at La Muse.

Two  sojourns, two volumes of poetry produced and published.

What advice would you give future attendees?

Plan, prepare, and focus on a specific project for the time involved.

What three (French!) words would you use to describe La Muse?

Sanctuaire, tranquille, inspirant.

Below is one of the three poems from Tadgh’s collection “Comhdháil.”

Tadgh wrote the poem while attending La Muse as the La Muse/ An Foras Feasa Fellow. The poem won the Dánta na Comhdhála: Annual International Competition for best poem in Irish or Scots Gaelic. The Irish is followed by an English translation. (You can also see video of the actual recital by Judith Mok that inspired Tadgh’s poem at the end of the English translation below too.)

“Aiséirí”

Ar chloisint Judith Mok ag ceol i Séipéilín na Maighdine, le linn oscailt thaispeántas ealaíne La Muse, Labastide Esparbärineque, Languedoc, ar an Domhnach, 9. 8. 2008.

Bhí drogall ar an ndoras géilleadh d’eochair an Mhéara
Is d’éagaoin na hinsí faoi éigean a ghuailne
Faoi mar ba réabadh reilige tuama seo an tseanchreidimh
Séipéilín tréigthe na Maighdine
Ar maos le hiarsmaí na seandeabhóide
Ó laethanta an chreidimh a bhí anallód ann,
A chur ar fáil mar ardán,
Do Phrima Donna opera ar saoire sa dúthaigh:
Gabhar sa teampall
Ná stadfadh go raghadh ’on altóir.

Lasadh coinnle ar mhaithe le hatmaisféar
Is bhailigh ealta caobach ar thóir cultúir isteach
Is chuir, dá mb’fhéidir san, le dreach truamhéileach na Maighdine,
Muire na nDólás,
Seachas mar a bhíodh tráth ar mhair sagart beo ar an mbaile.

Thabharfá do d’uidh
Stáisiúin na Croise i gcailc dhaite
Múnlaithe go maoithneach de réir treoracha tinneasnacha
Naomh Bonaventura in Smaointe Beatha Chríost:
Na súile móra dólásacha,
Na geáitsí drámatúla, na gothaí impíocha
A bhogfadh an croí cloiche ionainn tráth
Do dhóthain de thitimí, de mhaslaí is de sciúrseadh thuras na croise
Ag gabháil trí ghleann na ndeor duit siar amach go héadóchas Golgatha.

Agus bhí an fhoireann tacaíochta leis ó inné ann:
Páirt lárnach ag Seosamh an seanshéithleach dílis,
Traochta, ar leathghlúin, ag friotháilt ar Mhuire,
Ná leáfadh im ina béal
Agus cloigeann na nathrach brúite faoina sáil;
Í ar a barraicíní ar tí a deastógála,
Treasa Avila, ag déanamh a marana,
Thérèse de Lisieux,
Suanmhar sítheach i measc na mbláth;
Proinsias de Sales ag cleachtadh cúirtéise
Vincent de Paul i mbun obair na trócaire.

B’oiriúnaí, déarfá, boladh túise agus an Tantum Ergo
An Pie Jesu agus an Salve Regina
Ná Summertime and the Living is Easy
A raibh sé de dhánaíocht sa Iúdach mná crochadh suas mar finale
Ach in Veni Creator mo chroí caitliceach féin tharla rud éigin:
Mhúscail stáisiúin na croise ina dtableaux
Is bhí an baile beo:
Chaoch Iósaf súil leis an Mhaighdean Mhuire
Thuirling cumhracht Lisieux ar an slua
Leathnaigh drithlíní áthais ó Avila
Is bhain guth na mná macalla as sléibhte, gleannta is mánna
Siar amach go Cathair an Iomchúisimh i gCarcasonne;
Agus bhí sé ina mhaidin Chásca
Bhí baint an fhéir sa spéir le héirí gréine
Sa cheol a raid sí leis an mbith
Agus d’fhógair coiligh an bhaile i gcór le chéile:
‘Mac na hÓighe slán! Mac na hÓige slán!
Ag guth ainglí Judith Mok
Ag athghabháil ceol draíochta na dtroubadour
Maidin Domhnaigh Fómhair i Languedoc.

On hearing Judith Mok sing, in the Chapel of the Virgin, at the opening of the La Muse art exhibition, in Languedoc.

The door creaked when the mayor turned the key
As though objecting to this crowd of culture vultures
Disturbing the peace
Of the chapel of the Virgin fallen from grace
For an Opera Prima Donna on holidays to take over the alter
As though she were going on stage.

We lit candles just for atmosphere and crowded in
To sing the praises of the artwork
While the old statue of Our Lady of Sorrows looked more sorrowful still.

You couldn’t but notice the Stations of the Cross
The big sad eyes,
The dramatic, imploring gestures
That could once soften this heart of stone
Sending up sighs as you made your way through the valley of tears.

All the supporting cast were there:
Faithful Joseph central to the show:
There he was exhausted on bended knee tending to Mary
You’d swear butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,
As she crushed the serpent under her heal,
On her tippy toes ready to be assumed into heaven.
Teresa of Avila in the background, transfixed in ecstasy
Thérèse of Lisieux, tranquillity itself tiptoeing through the tulips.
Francis de Sales all kindness and courtesy
Vincent de Paul all corporal works of mercy.

You’d have thought that the smell of incense and the sound of the Tantum Ergo and the Salve Regina,
Were more appropriate to the setting that Madame Mok’s choice of
Summertime and the living is easy as finale.

And yet, in the Veni Creator of my own catholic heart something happened:
And the stations of the Cross all came to life.
Joseph winked at the Virgin Mary,
The fragrance of Lisieux decended on us
And we tripped along with Teresa of Avila.
As the voice of the Prima Donna rolled down through the hills and valleys
To the city of the inquisition in Carcassone
And ’twas Easter morning;
The sun danced in the sky,
As choirs of starlings proclaimed resurrection,
On hearing the voice of Judith Mok
Echoing the local troubadours
On a sunny Sunday morning in Languedoc.