Finding Your Voice: Yoga & Creative Writing Retreat

A spring weekend of Hatha yoga, meditation, and writing with Charles MacInerney

Join veteran retreat leader Charles MacInerney for a spring weekend of yoga and creative writing at Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville in Buckingham, Virginia. The weekend blends gentle Hatha yoga and guided meditation with creative writing in the Amherst Writers & Artists method, in a warm and welcoming community. Yogis and writers of every level are welcome, and no manuscript or yoga experience is required.

Where Yoga Meets the Page

For 30 years, Charles has led creative writing and yoga retreats across Texas and around the world. He pioneered an approach that uses yoga and meditation to help writers deepen their craft, and Yoga Journal featured it in December 2003. This spring he brings that work to Yogaville, a peaceful retreat community in the Virginia countryside. The retreat rests on a simple idea: yoga and writing, practiced together, open doors that neither opens alone.

How the Days Unfold

Each day weaves together Hatha yoga, meditation, and writing. Yoga classes energize the body and return you to your senses, then close with a deep guided relaxation. That relaxation leaves the mind calm and receptive, the best condition for writing that flows freely without editing or self-judgment. Afterward, we gather in small groups, where anyone who wishes may read aloud what they've written.

The Amherst Writers & Artists Method

Charles facilitates the writing sessions using the method developed by Pat Schneider, founder of Amherst Writers & Artists. The practice helps you find your truest voice by writing from the images, memories, and feelings we all carry.

We write in response to prompts, which you are always free to ignore. When we respond to one another's work, we speak only to what moved us, what stayed with us, and what we liked, and we never critique. The circle is built on trust, and people are consistently surprised by how much they write, and how honestly.

Retreat Highlights

• Daily Hatha yoga and guided relaxation to quiet the mind and open the senses for writing
• Writing practice grounded in the acclaimed Amherst Writers & Artists method
• Small group readings in a warm, confidential, judgment-free circle
• Led by Charles MacInerney, a longtime retreat leader whose yoga-and-writing approach was featured in Yoga Journal
• Set at Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville, a serene retreat community in the Virginia countryside

Who This Retreat Is For

This weekend is for yogis, writers, and anyone curious about both. You may never have rolled out a yoga mat or written anything longer than a grocery list, or you may be an experienced practitioner of either craft. No manuscripts, yoga background, or particular skill level are required, only a willingness to show up and write. Every activity, from asana to reading your work aloud, is an invitation and never a requirement.

What You'll Take Home

• New writing, generated over the weekend, often more honest and unfiltered than you expected
• A body and mind that feel more settled, more attuned to sensation, and quieter than when you arrived
• Practical tools from the Amherst Writers & Artists method to sustain a safe, generative writing practice long after the retreat
• Renewed confidence in your own voice, on the page and off it
• New friendships in a small, supportive community of writers and yogis

What Past Participants Say

Talk about a recharge for the body, mind, and soul! The combination of writing and yoga is brilliant. ~Anne G.

I shall forever draw pleasure and reap benefit from what I experienced and learned at the Mind/Body Creative Writing Retreat. ~Jan R.

I actually had tears running down my face on the way home. I felt like I was leaving family that I was not sure I would see again. ~Doris

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