Success in Spring

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for the fires, the poems, the roadside avocados, the flowers, the cacti, the wonderful women in town, the newborn foal, the incredible meals, the many haiku, the trip to Isla Negra, the beach, the many Sophie moments, the laughter, the shopping, the Seinfeld, the quiet, the love, the love...
Chris K. Fraser
Workshop presenter
Oct 2009

Book Now!

Air Canada is currently offering great savings on flights to Chile.
Some are available now, others as of Jan 10th, 2010.
It's a wonderful opportunity to visit another continent and participate in a writing workshop.
These flights are direct and non-stop.
Have your family drop you off at Toronto's International Airport, let us pick you up in Santiago.
It's overnight - you may even sleep.
Check the Air Canada Web Pages - also those of LAN Chile, and American Airlines, who will be competing - to get a deal you can't beat.

What People Have Said - Ruth

A two-week writing retreat at Los Parronales outside Santiago during Chile’s spring or summer is a bit of paradise – cloudless blue skies, deliciously prepared meals, a seemingly endless flow of fine Chilean red and white wines and such inspiring guidance on the composition of prose and poetry that one magically becomes more prolific than one has ever before been in one’s life. I give it a rating not of five stars but of five constellations.

Ruth Roach Pierson Author of Aide-Mémoire (BuschekBooks, 2007), named a finalist for the 2008 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry.

Third Workshop - Sixth Season!

Journeys & Discoveries:
Writing from Your Life

A Writing Workshop with Allyson Latta

Santiago, Chile – February 7th to 21st, 2010

“Any bits of warm life preserved by the penare trophies snatched from the dark,are branches of leaves fished out of the flood,are tiny arrests of mortality.”

—Laurie Lee, I Can't Stay Long

Don’t miss this sun-drenched opportunity to experience a two-week residential writing holiday in the scenic foothills of the Andes. Long-time residents of Chile, the Siddeleys, share their love of the culture by hosting a small group of writers in their home, Los Parronales (Spanish for “vineyards”), for this unique and intimate retreat.

Morning workshops will stimulate your memories, encourage you to experiment with craft, and inspire spirited discussion. Within a supportive circle, we’ll share personal writing, considering how our past influences us, as well as our art. Days include time for private consultation with the instructor, guided and independent writing, and of course drinking in the exotic surroundings.

Whatever your age and whatever you are writing – short stories or a book, non-fiction or fiction – your personal journeys and discoveries will play an important role. Life writing can be life-affirming, entertaining, cathartic – and it is never less than illuminating. Join us . . . and see where your past leads you.

ALLYSON LATTA is an independent literary editor, writer and workshop facilitator. She has edited more than a hundred award-winning works of fiction and memoir, and teaches life writing for the University of Toronto as well as privately. Allyson was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and now lives in the Toronto area.

Recommended reading: Writing About Your Life by William Zinsser

For more about memoir writing, visit www.daysroadwriters.blogspot.com
(Click link at top of main page for Los Parronales photos.)

For more information about this retreat, please contact:
Susan Siddeley at motocad@rogers.com

What People Have Said - Shane

Two winters ago, I attended a writing workshop at Los Parronales in Chile, while contemplating a major life change. I was looking for new anchors, new hope, fearful of the future. There, with the snow- topped cordillera on one side and the sun-baked foothills on the other, I felt protected.
The daily walks through rows of grapevines bursting with life, displaying their crimson nectar, gave me optimism for the myriad paths my life could take. Walks up the mountain to stand on a crest, look out upon Santiago and let go, allowed me to release fear.
The writing sessions, where we reached deep into ourselves, mining inspiration, saw some of my best prose emerge - to be published in an anthology after I returned to Canada. Visiting the homes of the great poet Pablo Neruda, to gaze over the ocean as he did, uncover patterns that he laid out so eloquently in his poetry, was an experience never to be forgotten. As was the fun of drinking wines we never see in an LCBO in Canada!
To watch Chilean children, dressed in techni-coloured ponchos and black sombreros, proudly stage a cultural show for us on the day of our departure, brought a tear to my eye. It’s nearly two years since that visit. My life has moved in other directions, but the picture is still clear, and as full of promise as a Neruda poem.
Shane Joseph
www.shanejoseph.com

Book Now!

Check Air Canada's Great Deals for October 2009!

They fly Toronto-Santiago direct, non-stop

and are currently advertising fares for half what people have paid previously.

If you want to experience

Latin America, The Andes, Neruda

and Write...

now is the time to do it.

Susan Siddeley 09.07.09

2010 Los Parronales 6th Season

Trickster Meets the Muse

with Lorri Neilsen Glenn
Santiago, Chile, January 17th – 30th 2010


What happens when imagination meets memory, when chance meets inspiration?
This workshop will give your writing new life, open you up to the lessons of the duende, and plumb the heart and soul of work you didn’t know you could do.

In this two-week South American guided writing retreat, we’ll engage in discussions and activities, listen to our muse, dance with our trickster, and come away with a stronger sense of the vitality and depth of our poetry and prose.

Each writer’s work is given individual attention and feedback; the balance of solitude and community at Los Parronales creates an environment ideal for digging deeper and aiming higher.

Suitable for writers of all levels working in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction.
Start fresh, bring work-in-progress, or both.

You will be asked to complete a short questionnaire and to send a writing sample beforehand.

A recommended reading list and a more detailed description of the writing retreat will be available in the summer of 2009.

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Lorri Neilsen Glenn is an award-winning poet and creative nonfiction writer and the author and editor of ten books including the forthcoming Lost Gospels (Brick Books). Halifax Poet Laureate for 2005-2009, Neilsen Glenn has developed and taught creative writing workshops in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and across Canada.


For more information about Los Parronales Writing Retreats please contact:
Susan Siddeley: motocad@rogers.com