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ABOUT
GAIL
I have always been seeking my
voice. In the first grade and thereafter, the only negative comment on
my report card was that I "whisper too much." I started keeping a diary
around age ten to express my feelings and to be heard if only on the
blank page. Keeping journals has continued as a practice for me over
the last fifty years. I think that time of growing up in a small town
in Michigan in the 1950's when "children should be seen and not heard"
started me on this path of creative self-expression.
Although
an educator in public schools and community colleges for over 20 years,
and a director of stage plays for a local community theater for over 10
years, it is the writing that has remained a constant in my life and
become the tool for my creative heart to take flight. In the early
'90's, I taught journal writing workshops with Neahkahnie Institute in
Nehalem and The Artist Way classes through Tillamook Bay Community
College before founding Creative Journeys Writing Workshops in the mid-nineties. I currently speak and teach writing workshops on
the Oregon and throughout the United States. To arrange a workshop or retreat in your area, contact Gail at

I
know there are many of you out there who have a story to tell, an
urging to define your life on the page in your own voice, and a desire
to heal yourself and the world, one story at a time. I invite you to
join me and other writers, all of us seeking the same thing, on this
path of living and writing from the heart.
This is by far, the
best, most inspirational and motivating writing workshop I've ever
attended. It had just the right amount of lecture and writing, and I
loved hearing other writer's words. . . . Tammy
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Balden’s essay, “Sweet Hankies” was recently published in Oregon Writers Colony anthology, In Our Own Voices. Other essays have been published in anthologies produced by Beyond Words
Publishing, Inc., including Our Turn, Our Time - Women Truly
Coming of Age and Midlife Clarity - Epiphanies for
Grown-Up Girls. Her essay, "Can We Go Home Again?" was
published in The Rocking Chair Reader collection, Coming Home,
and her essay, "A Christmas Box" was published in A Cup of
Comfort for Women by Adams Media Corporation. Other work has
been published in Poetry and Prose Annual, Oregon
Coast Magazine, RAIN and Pelican
Post, as well as local magazines. Gail makes her home in the
small town of Nehalem on the Oregon coast where she writes a monthly
column for the North Coast Citizen on small town life.
I've attended many of
Gail's workshops and always leave not only inspired to keep on writing
but also with small writing gems from her writing exercises to continue
working on. . . . CarolAnn
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