Today we’d like to introduce you to Patricia Fancher.
Hi Patricia, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I teach and study writing at UCSB. I started my career as a researcher, and I go to archives to study communities of queer men and women. I ask a lot of questions about how communities support folks and how writing can help communities. Most of my writing was research based, but in the past 6 years I started to branch into creative nonfiction. And I got hooked. Now most of my writing is creative writing, essays, memoir. And I really wanted to build more community around creative writing.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Writing can be lonely business. And when you’re trained to write research, it was hard to reconnect to my creative voice. For a long time I wasn’t at all sure of my creative voice. I was alone, writing, working and revising. But I didn’t have a sense of how I sounded. When I started to make more writer friends, I learned from them but I also just felt my own personal voice refining. But writing can be really lonely. And most of the time I do write alone. I didn’t have many friends who were creative writers, and the people I did know are mostly friends I made online. I really was feeling isolated in Santa Barbara. But Santa Barbara has a large creative community and I just needed to create a space for us to connect.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I wanted to support my own creative writing, and I wanted to enjoy the inspiration of a creative community. My friend Dan Troon-Sazani founded the Lowstate Writing Salon. We wanted to create a writing space that wasn’t about performance or ego. We wanted to hold a space
We started in Oct 2023 with just 5 people and now we have 50 people! One day a month we meet at a brewery, Casa Agria. During the Salon, a different member of the community takes a turn taking the lead. They bring their creative gifts and unique point of view as a writer to lead a writing prompt, game or activity. We write together, share, and praise each other. There isn’t any critique. We just share and show appreciation for each other.
I wanted to build on what we do in the Lowstate Salon. And, I spend my summer in Greece because my partner is Greek and we stay with his family when I’m not teaching in the summer. Every year for 3 years, I’ve been giving myself a little writing retreat in a small hotel on the south coast of Crete, just 4-5 days by myself writing, swimming, hiking. It’s an inspiring and joyful place. I wanted to share this experience with others. My dear friend Brian Gresko, a nyc based writer who has a long history of building writing community and who is a co-founder of the Writing Co-Lab. Brian and I are hosting a writing retreat in Crete from Aug 29-Sep 5th. And we are designing the event so that everyone has space and flexibility to write and follow their own creative practice. Then, each night, the writers will take turn teaching us some aspect of their writing practice or an activity that is inspiring. We are still recruiting folks for this first writing retreat. And we are so excited to hold that space and to help.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
Book: Artist’s Way by Julia Carson
Writing Co-Lab for all kinds of online writing events.
I love the podcast We can Do Hard Things: https://wecandohardthingspodcast.com/
Pricing:
- Lowstate Salon: Free!
- Peitho’s Gift Writing Retreat in Greece, 1750
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pfancher.com/workshops
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trish.fancher/
- Other: https://www.meetup.com/lowstate-writing-salon/
Image Credits
All the photos are mine except one. The image with the hammock in there I have the permission to use as long as we credit the photographer: Rolf Schotch
