Meet the Writer Within
Upcoming PROGRAMS
A Mountain Retreat
in Meditative Writing
September 18-20, 2026
Art of Living Retreat Center, Boone, NC
Join us at this two-night, three day, all-inclusive retreat high in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Our sessions will include guided meditation, lessons in creative writing, and freewriting exercises that help you to claim your singular voice as a writer. You will increase clarity, connect with your intuition, heal old stories, and open new channels of inspiration. You will also build community with likeminded writers, and will come away feeling inspired.
The retreat center is situated in a stunning natural environment. Room and board includes lodging, chef-prepared vegetarian meals, and wellness activities including yoga and guided hikes. You will also have the option to book a treatment at the center’s Shankara Ayurveda Wellness Spa, which Condé Nast named a Best Spa in the U.S. in 2025. This weekend is designed to bring your body, mind, heart, and spirit into harmony in your writing and your life. Tuition, $420; room and board beginning at $485. Continuing students are invited to do an add-on day, arriving on Thursday for a reunion, crystal bowl sound healing, and small group writing workshop. See the schedule of activities here. Register here.
Writing with the dead
with daniel Foor of Ancestral Medicine
January 2027
This is the signature course in ancestral Writing with Rachel Jamison Webster and Daniel Foor, Founder of Ancestral Medicine. By affirming that our ancestors can be active participants in our lives and creations, we open ourselves to channel the poems, essays, and stories that we most need to write—both to understand the past and to live fully in the present. In this eight week course, you’ll develop lasting ancestral connections and build a foundation for spirit-infused writing practices that endure beyond the time of the course. Join our waitlist here.
About your instructor
Rachel Jamison Webster is an award-winning author and professor of creative writing. She has taught at Northwestern University for 20 years, and has published five books and dozens of essays, poems, and articles. Her book of ancestral nonfiction Benjamin Banneker and Us was named a “Best Book of 2023” by The New Yorker and was an “Editor’s Pick” by The New York Times. Rachel’s book of poetry, Mary is a River, was written in the voice of Mary Magdalene and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her book The Sea Came Up & Drowned combines her collages and “mined” erasure poems to meditate on our extractive relationship to the earth. It has been turned into a choral symphony that will be performed by Donald Nally’s ensemble The Crossing in cities throughout the U.S. and globally in 2026.
Rachel has also practiced meditation for more than 20 years. She combines these practices in her teaching. Read more about Rachel and her process here.
Activate your inspiration
Retreats
Join me in person for retreats that combine creative writing instruction with meditative practices designed to help you clear energy and increase intuition and spiritual clarity.
RECORDINGS
Some of our courses are available to purchase as recordings and resources. See what we offer here.