Teaching & Events
CLASSES & WORKSHOPS / RETREATS & GATHERINGS / GROUPS / WORKING TOGETHER
The last nearly thirty years of my life have been centered around creating, writing, and teaching in community. Though much of the work must be done in solitude, my inspiration and my courage come from the community of writers and creators I keep company with.
Recurring workshops
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Captured Moments
Second Monday of each month.
12:00-1:30 pm (PT)
Virtual via Zoom
$12/sessionOur lives are filled with moments, large and small, from which we emerge a different person. In this monthly writing group, we’ll embark on expeditions to discover, uncover, and recover those moments of change in our lives. Each 90-minute session will include a writing prompt from which participants will free-write, writing practice style, for a set amount of time.
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Thursday Writers
Every Thursday 5:00-6:00 pm
Lestat’s Adams AvenueRegister online at Writers, Ink
One of the original drop-in writing practice groups, Thursday Writers offers a lively and fast-paced writing practice session where you can expect evocative prompts to get your pen moving, focused time for writing and a safe and friendly community of like-minded writers. Bring your notebooks and a friend and join us.
Hosted by Steve Montgomery and Judy Reeves.
Monthly & Weekly Workshops
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Spring Equinox Celebration
SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 2025
10AM-1 PM (IN PERSON) • BALBOA PARKCelebrate the Spring Equinox with an intimate writing workshop in San Diego's treasured Balboa Park. Our creative journey begins in the newly restored Botanical Building where we’ll wander among seasonal blooms. Our path then leads to the enchanting Zoro Garden, now a sanctuary for butterflies, where nature's delicate transformations will guide our writing prompts. The journey culminates beneath the sprawling canopy of the historic Moreton Bay Fig tree, where we'll explore Equinox legends, lore, and the timeless magic of seasonal renewal through our writing. More information and meeting location will be provided upon registration.
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Memoir Read & Critique Group
TUESDAYS, 6-8:30 PM (IN PERSON)
BEGINS JUNE 18, 2024Read and critique is a way—possibly the only way—for writers to hear how their writing sounds to others. This is how we discover whether the piece we so painstakingly and painfully created and re-created, actually works. Nothing serves writers better than a supportive and trusted group to ask the questions we didn’t know to ask and help us see problems we may sense, but can’t identify. Because we can never hear our stories for the first time, we rely on the response of others to tell us where we’ve found our groove, and where we’ve lost our way. Response from the group can also help us regain perspective, which can so easily be lost when we write from our own lives.
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San Miguel Writers' Conference
FEBRUARY 12-16, 2025
SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MXI'm delighted, excited, and filled with all kinds of joy that I have been invited to lead a couple of memoir workshops at the San Miguel Writers' Conference for a second year. The conference is an abundance of workshops, speakers, panels, and networking opportunities. Plus a contest where you could win "The Works Package" to the 2025 Conference. I'm judging the nonfiction/memoir track. Contest deadline is October 1.
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Author of the Month
SATURDAY, SEPT. 14, 2024, 2-3:30 PM
SAN DIEGO CENTRAL LIBRARYWhat a honor! I've been named "Author of the Month" by the Friends of the Library and invited to speak on Saturday, Sept. 14 at my favorite Library. Come join us and let's talk about you and where you'll go when your heart beckons. We'll be in the Mary Hollis Clark Conference Center, on the first floor, right next to the Library Shop. Copies of When Your Heart Says Go will be available for purchase and signing.
Monthly & Weekly Workshops
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Annual Winter Writing Retreat
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2024 10 AM-3 PM
MISSION SAN LUIS REY, OCEANSIDE, CAJoin Writers, Ink Executive Director Kristen Fogle and me for our winter writing retreat at the beautiful and inspirational Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside. Retreat writers will have two choices for this annual retreat: come to the Mission on Friday afternoon for an overnight retreat and writing sessions, then stay for the all-day gathering on Saturday. All retreaters will join for the day-long session in a private room at the Mission for a day of writing and sharing, which will include time spent on the landscaped grounds of the historic Mission. This year’s retreat falls on the Winter Solstice, which we will honor during our sessions. For Overnight Retreaters: the fee includes evening and morning writing sessions, a private room, dinner, and breakfast.
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Memoir Read & Critique Group
TUESDAYS, 6-8:30 PM (IN PERSON)
BEGINS JUNE 18, 2024Read and critique is a way—possibly the only way—for writers to hear how their writing sounds to others. This is how we discover whether the piece we so painstakingly and painfully created and re-created, actually works. Nothing serves writers better than a supportive and trusted group to ask the questions we didn’t know to ask and help us see problems we may sense, but can’t identify. Because we can never hear our stories for the first time, we rely on the response of others to tell us where we’ve found our groove, and where we’ve lost our way. Response from the group can also help us regain perspective, which can so easily be lost when we write from our own lives.
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San Miguel Writers' Conference
FEBRUARY 12-16, 2025
SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MXI'm delighted, excited, and filled with all kinds of joy that I have been invited to lead a couple of memoir workshops at the San Miguel Writers' Conference for a second year. The conference is an abundance of workshops, speakers, panels, and networking opportunities. Plus a contest where you could win "The Works Package" to the 2025 Conference. I'm judging the nonfiction/memoir track. Contest deadline is October 1.
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Author of the Month
SATURDAY, SEPT. 14, 2024, 2-3:30 PM
SAN DIEGO CENTRAL LIBRARYWhat a honor! I've been named "Author of the Month" by the Friends of the Library and invited to speak on Saturday, Sept. 14 at my favorite Library. Come join us and let's talk about you and where you'll go when your heart beckons. We'll be in the Mary Hollis Clark Conference Center, on the first floor, right next to the Library Shop. Copies of When Your Heart Says Go will be available for purchase and signing.
TEACHING
Teaching is as much a love and way of life as writing. I teach at San Diego Writers, Ink and other venues, including writing conferences at home and internationally. I like teaching in a classroom setting as well as in less formal workshops and I’ll pack my bag for just about anywhere in US and abroad to participate in a writing conference.
Put me in a room with other writers—a few or a crowd—and I’m a happy woman. I create and lead private workshops and facilitate writing retreats. I believe the Muse likes to work a crowd and for me creating groups and leading workshops is a way of bringing people together where we share our experiences and stories and in this way, create community.
CLASSES & WORKSHOPS
In both multi-session classes and shorter workshops, I like what happens when we work together, when students find their voice, when they craft a fine sentence or create a story out of an idea or image, when they discover a technique that changes their writing.
I like hearing their stories, listening for what writers want to communicate and helping them make the writing more clear, more compelling. I teach classes and lead workshops in person and virtually, in San Diego where I live and with organizations and in venues elsewhere.
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WRITER * TEACHER * MENTOR * AUTHOR *
RETREATS & GATHERINGS
From several days to a single afternoon or evening, I encourage writers to retreat from their daily lives for time away. Retreats of any length provide us a time and place to open ourselves to creative expression, to produce new work or immerse ourselves in a work-in-progress. Retreats can refill and restore us and allow us time to connect with our creative selves.
GROUPS
As long as we’ve been putting pen to page, we writers have come together for community. I’ve been involved in writing groups in one way or another since I was eleven years old and I’m not going to stop until they make me. I lead both long-term read-and-critique writing groups and drop-in writing practice groups. In writing groups, we bear witness to each other’s efforts, we learn from one another and spark each other’s creativity. We share camaraderie and create community. It is in writing groups that we find our tribe.
WORKING TOGETHER
From editing to coaching to helping writers create and sustain a writing practice, I offer one-on-one sessions for short- or long-term partnership. I believe we each must find our own voice and tell our own stories, and we each must find our own creative process.
I know from experience—my own and working with other writers for more than thirty years—sometimes working with another person in a safe and supportive setting can provide help along the way.
Comments & Compliments
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A huge thank you Judy for last night. I can't tell you how many people came up to tell me how great you were. Exactly the right information, exactly the right pace, exactly the right amount of humor. Nobody could have done a better job or as brilliantly as you did.
- Bridget Dole -
Judy creates an environment in her classes that encourages students to go deep and bring out the truth. The prompts she uses, the passages she reads from the works of prominent authors and the examples from her own writing and life experience drive me to be better . . . to write better, to dig deeper for the truth. Sometimes what surfaces is pretty raw. That is when Judy is at her best to me. Her critique is very specific and constructive, yet she delivers it with compassion.
– Laurinda
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Just wanted to express my gratitude for your thoughtful edits and the recommendations you provided me during our Advance Reader session. Your encouragement really meant a lot to me! You made an enormous impact on me this weekend, and I can't thank you enough.
– Richelle
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I loved writing with you today. The prompts were great and your positive energy is always inspiring. I heard a few friends in the room read some of their very best work. All thanks to you.
– Aimee
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She is so very generous with her students - accepting of each writer’s process and the words they produce. Actually, I think she goes beyond acceptance. She really honors your work regardless of your skill level.
– Donna
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Writers are so often starved for praise and encouragement. Judy has the uncanny ability to make writers love themselves while in her presence.
– James