Post-Holiday Reboot: Footprints on a Page – A Writing Retreat

Wondering how to begin a new year? Come enjoy an upbeat, exploratory writing
retreat with Sarah Rabkin, author and illustrator. With a wide variety of prompts, this
will be a great opportunity for new and experienced writers to have fun together while
tapping into our own creative wisdom. Writing in a spirit of adventurous inquiry can
yield insights we didn’t know we possessed. It can help us shift perspective, cultivate
equilibrium, find a way forward. In this 5-hour mini-retreat with a break for a potluck
lunch, open-ended prompts conducive to poetry and/or prose will provide rich and fun
opportunities to use writing as a tool for discovery and growth. You will be invited, but
never required, to read your words aloud: no criticism or feedback, just the powerful
experience of mutual witness without judgment. There’s an oft-quoted adage among
writers, probably originating with the novelist E.M. Forster: “How do I know what I
think till I see what I say?” Here’s your chance!  Bring a notebook ready to be filled.

Maximum 15 participants, so register early by or before December 10.
After December 10, registrations open up to the wider community.
To register for the retreat, please send email confirmation to northbrae3@gmail.com
and deliver or send a check to the church office made out to Northbrae Community
Church. The fee is on a sliding scale from $50-$75. If your financial situation puts this
out of range for you, please contact Rev. Elizabeth Hutchins (eohutchins@gmail.com)
to make an alternative arrangement.

Cancellation deadline: By or before January 17, 2026 – Full refund. After 1/17/26,
refund only if you find someone to replace you.

Sarah Rabkin is the author and illustrator of What I Learned at Bug Camp: Essays on Finding a Home in the World (Juniper Lake Press, 2011) and the unpublished manu-
script The Quiet Activist: Healing the World by Doing What You Love. A former fac-
ulty member in writing and environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz, she currently

works as a freelance editor, writing coach, and workshop leader. She has degrees in
biology (Harvard University) and science communication (UC Santa Cruz).