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.

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.