“Take Up your Bed and Walk:” An AROHO Feature with Bridget Birdsall, Gift of Freedom Finalist
Dear Gift of Freedom Applicant: After years of plugging away at my writing, attending countless workshops and earning an MFA, I had filled hundreds of pages, with hundreds of words, that never managed to journey any farther than the filing cabinet in my closet. So, when a friend told me about the Gift of Freedom Award, which of course sounded too good to be true, I decided to take a chance and put my words out into the world. This was...
On Rejection, Mira Bartók
Fear of Rejection from: “How I Became the Grant Queen and How You Can Too” by Mira Bartók The fear of being rejected prevents a lot of women from applying for opportunities out there. This phobia reminds me about that old song we sang in the schoolyard when we were kids. I loved it because it was so gross and everyone who knows me knows that trapped inside this 48-year-old woman’s body is a twelve-year-old boy dying to put a...
Straight Talk about Grants
At AROHO, we want to help you become your best writer, and we believe the Gift of Freedom Application can help uncover some of the obstacles on the path to personal breakthrough and creative “success.” Here are our tips for helping you make the most of the application and for helping improve the chances of your submissions in general. Hygiene (For highly creative women, this is often the area where mistakes are made) The...
“Pull the Lever!” An AROHO Anthem by Lauren Baldwin
Lauren Baldwin completed her MFA in Fiction at Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2010 and her JD at the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1992. She is a Judicial Hearing Officer in the Family Court division of the Second Judicial District Court in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Lauren has attended every AROHO retreat since its inception and is the retreat’s hospitality coordinator (the woman with wine and duct tape). She is a...
“Self-Doubt, Sacred Drift, and Submissions,” Melita Schaum
Melita Schaum won the fall 2010 A Room of Her Own Foundation’s prestigious Orlando Prize in Creative Nonfiction, an honor that—in addition to providing $1000 and publication in The Los Angeles Review–earned her a Pushcart Prize nomination. What is she doing right? A Room of Her Own got the inside scoop, as well as an audio clip from her recent ventures into the world of mixed media and sound arts. Melita Schaum is an English...
Art is my taste for freedom. I drown day and day until I pick up my paintbrush once again. So, somehow, I can tell myself that you’re not stuck in this room and that the canvas is the key.
Nina Salvadoré
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Seabed or ocean floor? What is the difference?
Submit Your Art & Writing to WAVES
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WAVES ALIVE is an immersive experience held tenderly by the ebb and flow of ritual, sisterhood, creative expansion, then surfacing to share what we have uncovered about ourselves and our art.
October 11 | expansion | noon to 3pm EST
December 6-7 | oneness | noon to noon EST | dip in and out throughout this twenty-four hour wave
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Immersion Aug 29, 2025
