Write It Out®
Writing and Expressive Art Workshop
Tuscany, Italy

Saturday October 18 - Saturday October 25, 2008

Immerse yourself in the culture of a Renaissance Tuscan estate. Villa Le Barone, the location of our workshop was once a private estate and now is a small hotel in the mountains surrounded by vineyards and olive groves where olive oil is produced. Workshops offer guidance to play, imagine and express with words and paint for the beginner to the experienced. Relax and enjoy Italian country life, modern amenities, regional foods and culture in a famed location where Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was born. Salons of readings and lectures each evening are an opportunity to share creativity in an historic, setting. Visits to Florence, Siena and other locales can be arranged at an additional charge if transportation is needed. There will also be an optional one-day cooking class offered by Villa Le Barone.

This year we offer the following workshops:

Feel It! Write It! A sensory-based writing workshop tailored to the Italian experience and culture. Spontaneous writing methods develop insight and authenticity used for fiction, poetry, plays, and nonfiction. A memoir of the senses is prepared.

Feel It! Paint It! An expressive art workshop that uses paint to illustrate the five senses. The process of spontaneous painting frees the inner spirit and encourages the natural instinct to play. A Garden Book of the Senses is developed.

Facilitator: Ronni Miller is Founder and Director of Write It Out®, an expressive and motivational writing program for students of all ages. Her work as a writer, playwright, editor, and educator led to her creating the Write It Out® Program in 1992. Miller lectures and teaches motivational and expressive writing in the United States and abroad. She is a charter institutional member of the National Association of Poetry Therapy (NAPT), and is the author of two books, Dance With The Elephants, Free Your Creativity And Write, and Where To Go With Your Lover, as well as numerous essays, short stories and poems. Her plays and performance pieces have been produced in schools and at theatrical readings. She encourages expression of feelings and thoughts through the pen and the paint brush. Miller also runs a private practice in Expressive Writing facilitation and manuscript development consulting, and divides her time between Sarasota, FL, Woodstock, NY and Italy.