Take a creative journey that will transform you.
Are you interested in:
Fall Farmhouse Writing Retreat, September 2021
Exploring the intersections between nature, history, and place, in your life?
Finding the stories inside you?
Kickstarting your writing?
Receiving prompts that are not generic.
Uncovering your writing path by exploring your inner and outer landscapes?
Joining a group that is curious about the power of place and less about sounding “literary” or exploring emotional traumas.
Refining and polishing a project with personalized support and mentoring?
If you answered yes to any of these,
Sense of Place Writing is for you.
Writing with a sense of place is not the only way to access your creative side, but it’s the “special sauce” that I have seen work effectively for all kinds of people.
When you use sense-of-place as the entry point for getting into your creative mind you discover a portal where your unique ideas, imagery, meaning, and metaphor reside.
Sense of Place Writing provides a structured, creative framework that leads you on a journey of self-expression, effective story crafting and skillful communication. My classes meet you where you are. They are not a generic, impersonal course, but instead a personalized mentoring experience within a community of support to help you become the writer you’re meant to be.
If you yearn to write more and are looking for inspiration and a community that supports you in exploring and finding your path, this writing framework is for you.
People interested in all kinds of writing join us: non-fiction, historical fiction, memoir, interpretation, songs, poetry, and more. All levels of experience can benefit from these programs. I hope you’ll join us too!
Sense of Place Writing: 2024 Offerings
1. Generate Fresh Writings
Hone your creative voice. Uncover and develop your stories. Thrive in a vibrant community. Get weekly inspiration, motivation, mini-lessons, prompts, and writing time.
Includes:
12 Weekly group classes
12 Weekly co-writing sessions
3 Open office hours with Erica
1 1:1 Kickoff planning session with Erica
Limited to 10 participants per class.
3-month program investment: $850
($283 per month) All classes will be recorded.
2. Develop and Polish
Hone your ideas and your writing voice. Develop drafts of stories. Get in-depth support and feedback.
6 Bi-weekly group writing and development sessions
3 Group feedback sessions
3 Open office hours with Erica
12 Weekly co-writing sessions
Limited to 8 participants per class.
3-month program investment: $1,100
($366 per month)
All classes will be recorded.
3. Focus and Finish: Private Mentoring
Map out your project action plan.
Create habits to live a creative life.
Access, outline, revise, and complete.
Includes:
Project reflection worksheets and questionnaires
1:1 Kickoff call
4 bi-weekly 1:1 sessions with Erica
Personalized weekly accountability emails and action plan follow-ups.
A 2-month commitment is required. $550 per month.
Book a VIP Accelerator Day!
Book a full day (in-person or online) to organize and fine-tooth-comb your writing, sketch out project ideas, review your writing style, craft your plan, and optimize your environment to ensure success. Use time to get revved and focused so you can complete your project.
6-hour 1:1 VIP Accelerator Day $1,200.
($200 discount when purchased with Writer’s Road Map.)
Hello! I’m Erica Wheeler.
I help creatives, naturalists, scientists, historians, academics, educators, healers, and soul seekers find their creative path, hone their voice and develop their craft.
My creative framework has been honed from decades of experience, working on my own creative process, and offering workshops, classes, and training to help people find and develop their stories, from Women’s Wellness Weekends to working with park rangers from Denali National Park and Preserve to the Washington Monument.
I work with all types of writers - from the budding creative to the published pro. I help people become the writers they are inside and find their creative voice, even when they weren’t sure they had one. I help them find their creative path, and craft their stories to completion.
I do this by offering practices centered around exploring personal experiences and ideas through the lens of place. I lead them on a journey of discovery, where life experiences, ideas, and knowledge weave together to create evocative, meaningful writings.
If you want to flourish in a community of support, engage in generating new writing, hone your ideas, polish your craft, and get personalized mentoring and coaching, please explore my offerings.
Kind words from participants:
“A great place to expand your skills.”
"I heartily recommend this class as a great place to find your voice and improve and expand your skills. It is appropriate for those with vague goals as well as those with works in progress. The practice of blending history, personal experience, theme, and descriptions really led to some good solid pieces. Through Erica's focused individual guidance, we were each treated like writers instead of students."
Beth Arrowsmith, Colorado, Educator, Photographer
“Helped me find writing my voice.”
"Working with Erica has moved my writing in directions that I never thought possible. It has helped me find my writing voice and helped my ideas coalesce into a set of connected essays. Erica has a sort of magic to her teaching, where she is more of a guide than a teacher who can pick up on what individuals need in the way of direction. It is a writing journey with others, and they are the best travel companions!"
Julia Clebsch, New Hampshire, Naturalist, Retired Park Ranger
“I learned to write much more expressively”
"I took Erica's class to get back to a regular writing schedule and pick up on a writing project I had sidelined a long time ago. Erica creates a warm and inviting space for participants to develop their writing without fear of judgment. It gave me permission to use my voice and lean into creating a scene through vivid details. I learned to write much more expressively because of it!
Shae McWilliams, Rhode Island, Sales and Development
“I have not written this much or as easily in my 30+ years in academia”
"I highly recommend Erica Wheeler and her writing classes! I have had a great deal of experience writing academic articles and chapters, which in turn meant I had little to no opportunities for descriptive or creative writing. I have not written this much or as easily in my 30+ years in academia. The classes are supportive and keep us actively writing, but also allow us to go at our own pace and take on as much or as little that meets our schedules."
Jeanne Stanley, Ph.D., Pennsylvania, Psychologist, Graduate School Consultant
“Never fails to make my imagination leap.”
“Erica weaves an experiential class of stories, writers, and inspiration together around Sense of Place that never fails to make my imagination leap. Her classes always deepen my connection with my current and past places which drives me to further explore my attachment to places that I would never have considered writing about before."
James McMenamin, Switzerland Heritage Photographer
"You've given me a whole new way of thinking about place.
"Living in a place where I really don’t feel connected, this process has really helped me come to terms with it, and how that’s okay. I can write about that."
Christina Campell, Iowa, University Professor and Knitting Blogger
“I truly felt at home.”
"Over the past year, this writing group has offered a sanctuary of inspiration. As an expert writing guide, Erica ensures that we all move forward on our unique writing journeys and don’t lose our way. It wasn’t until I found “Sense of Place” that I felt truly at home in a writing class. Erica is a mentor who inspires writers to experiment with their craft and to explore new territories. I haven’t had this much fun writing in a long time."
Sheila Harrigan, New York, Executive Director
“This was a new experience.”
“l had never taken another writing class, so this was a new experience. I had never thought of myself as a poet, but Erica stating that the rhythm of one of my pieces sounded like poetry opened my eyes. I valued the opportunity to do writing in class and was always surprised when short pieces I wrote turned out to be good!”
Andy Smith, New Jersey, Minister, Photographer
Participant results have included:
Generating enough writing to apply for a master’s degree in creative nonfiction
Writing a series of personal essays
Drafting hundreds of pages for a historical fiction novel
Finishing an essay about beavers for a park website
Completing a children’s book about geology
Creating poems to pair with photographs
Mapping out memoir content
Finding a new path for reworking a newsletter.
Crafting stories to share a passion for nature through story and descriptive imagery.
Finding the threads of story that could weave together past and present experiences.
Developing a writing practice
Living with increased confidence, creativity and well-being
Why write rooted in a sense of place?
1. Find your path.
When you start writing about places that are meaningful to you, you tap into a well of stories, imagery, and creativity inside you. And you become the descriptive, detailed writer you always hoped to be.
2. Hone your craft.
This framework helps all levels of writers gain a fresh approach and new techniques to help you see with new eyes, and add more details and depth to whatever you want to create.
3. Make deeper connections.
When you start writing about a place that intrigues you or matters to you, you uncover ideas you see deeper connections between what you feel or know, and the places, people, and events that intrigue you, you find your creative path.
4. Feel seen and supported
By finding and sharing your stories with others you start to feel seen profoundly. The group support and/or Erica’s mentoring will transform how you think about yourself and your writing.