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 30 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.

Gail Balden is a writer, educator and workshop presenter with over 30 years of teaching experience. Her work has been published in anthologies, literary journals and national magazines. She teaches one-day writing workshops on the Oregon coast and weekend writing retreats throughout the U.S. Her seven years of writing a monthly column on the joys of small town life are the basis for her current project, a book called Where the Lilacs Grow.