Creative Strategies
Workshops for rebuilding and reconnecting with your creative core
The Gift of Creative Practice
The loss of a job or a home, estrangement from loved ones, divorce, a partner’s death – these big life experiences can leave you feeling isolated and at times desperate for concrete tools, just to get through the day.
Or, maybe you've had to set aside your own creativity to manage all the demands of life. Even if you wouldn't change a thing, this may finally be the time to take a creative leap and give your attention to the story you've always wanted to write.
Workshops
Whatever your circumstances, reconnecting with your creativity can be truly liberating, and give your life direction and purpose. I am an experienced educator who has helped hundreds of students of all kinds connect with their personal creative strengths. These workshops are my unique blend of narrative and visual practices and exercises that can help you break through to the work you have always envisioned, or to harness your creativity to work through loss and difficult life changes.
I offer 2 distinct foundational workshops
and several pop-up workshops for specific topics
Foundational Frameworks
Creative Resilience Foundations
Mapping the next chapter: Creative renewal after life change
Designed for women who are navigating devastating life transitions like gray divorce, child estrangement, empty nests, or unexpected career shifts. This intimate, 3-session workshop uses accessible creative tools—open writing, collage, and simple bookmaking skills—to break through entrenched social filters, reframe boundaries, and build a personal compass that supports creative resilience for a life of your own design. Absolutely no art or writing experience required.
Establish a foundational practice that supports you, wherever you are on your current path. Then, unlock access to our menu of specialized, single-day niche workshops.
3 consecutive Saturdays 10am-2pm
Dates: October 10, 17, 24
$240 Inaugural fee (All-inclusive: Includes your twin-ring journal, ribbon-tie sketchbook, specialized studio materials, and a catered lunch each week)
limited to 8 participants
Related workshops
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The endless grief: living with estrangement
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Gray divorce: moving on with unanswered questions
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Rebuilding after loss
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Choosing a creative path
Creative Writing Foundations
Revealing the voice within: Creative practice for personal expression and narrative form
Before a writer considers an audience, they need a creative practice that captures their authentic voice. Designed for aspiring writers ready to establish writing as a lifelong source of creative fulfillment, this 3-session workshop treats the writer's notebook as both an incubator and a site for formal exploration. This unique blend of narrative and visual exercises guide the writer to bypass their inner critic, explore narrative form through playful paper manipulation, and build creative strategies to face the empty page. These practices will prepare the writer to align their choice of form with their personal voice and artistic vision for their work.
3 consecutive Saturdays 10am-2pm
Dates: TBD
$240 Inaugural fee (All-inclusive: Includes your twin-ring journal, ribbon-tie sketchbook, specialized studio materials, and a catered lunch each week)
limited to 8 participants
Related workshops
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The truth of fiction: the short story
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Working from lived experience: the memoir
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The elements of drama: the screenplay
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Following the question: the personal essay
Personal Consultations
Looking for individual feedback on your writing project, or are you facing creative roadblocks? I offer personal consultations to help you work through creative challenges. A published, award-winning author with a unique background in filmmaking, higher education, design thinking, and fine arts, I can help you develop tools and strategies to strengthen your own creative process.
By appointment
$120 for a 90-minute session
Catherine Rios 20+ years teaching writing, design thinking, media studies in higher education Associate Professor Emerita, Penn State University MFA Columbia University, Screenwriting BFA Rhode Island School of Design
"This was a place for healing in community and through embracing creativity."
"The workshop became a safe and inviting space with warm 'invitations' to be vulnerable and express yourself creatively."
"This space is open, safe, and gives you freedom to share or not. The workshop allows you to see yourself from different perspectives."
participants from "Mapping the Next Chapter"
To register or learn more
Connect here for details on upcoming workshops and to reserve your spot