Sundress Academy for the Arts will host its third annual generative writing retreat celebrating survival and healing on July 6-7, 2019. This two-day retreat for sexual assault survivors will be held in Oak Ridge, TN. It will be a safe space for creativity, generative writing exercises, discussions on ways to write trauma, advice on publishing, and more. The even will provide mutual support for a weekend of writing time for healing, safety, and comfort.

A weekend pass includes one-on-one and group instruction, writing supplies, meals, drinks, and all on-site amenities for $75. Only two spaces remain for this year's retreat.

The event is open to writers of all backgrounds and provides an opportunity to work with many talented, published fiction writers and poets from around the country, including Beth Couture, Rax King, Krista Cox, and Macy French.

Beth Couture is the author of Women Born with Fur (Jaded Ibis Press, 2014) and has published fiction in various journals and anthologies. She holds a PhD from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi, an MFA from the University of Notre Dame, and a Master's in Social Service from Bryn Mawr College. She works as a therapist in the Counseling Center at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Couture is a licensed social worker (LSW) in the state of Pennsylvania and is beginning training as a registered biblio/poetry therapist. Her approach to therapy is person-centered, psychodynamic, and feminist, and she frequently uses expressive writing and journaling with her clients. She has extensive experience working with college-age students, survivors of sexual trauma, and the trans and LGBTQ communities.

Rax King is a dog-loving, hedgehog-mothering, beer-swilling, gay and disabled sumbitch who occasionally writes poetry and works as assistant editor for Sundress Publications. She is the author of the collection The People's Elbow: Thirty Recitatives on Rape and Wrestling (Ursus Americanus, 2018). Her work can also be found in Barrelhouse, Peach Mag, and Glass Poetry.

For money, Krista Cox is a paralegal. For joy, she’s an associate poetry editor at Stirring: A Literary Collection, a member of the board of the Feminist Humanist Alliance, and Executive Director of Lit Literary Collective, a nonprofit serving her local literary community. Her poetry has appeared in Columbia Journal, Crab Fat Magazine, The Humanist, and elsewhere. There's more fascinating information about Krista to be found at kristacox.me.

Macy French is a poet from East Tennessee. Her work has appeared in Connotation Press, DASH Literary Journal, Gravel Magazine and others. She is a graduate of Tusculum University with a bachelor's degree in English and is currently working toward her M.Ed. in Elementary Education.

If you cannot attend, but would like to help to fund those who cannot afford the tuition, you can donate to the fundraiser to cover 100% of this year's costs on Facebook here.