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.
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Captured Moments
Second Monday of each month.
12:00-1:30 pm (PT) • Currently on Hiatus
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 5:30-6:30 pm
Lestat’s HillcrestRegister 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.
Recurring workshops
Monthly & Weekly Workshops
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Writing in Nature at the J&J RancH
SATURDAY JULY 12, 2025
10 AM– 4 PM • PRIVATE RANCH IN DESCANSOJoin us for a soul-nourishing day of Writing in Nature at the beautiful J&J Ranch. Whether you’re drawn to structured hourly prompts in our cozy writing room, inspired by crafting a vision board in a dedicated creative space, or seeking quiet, uninterrupted time to write indoors or out in the natural landscape, there’s something for every writer. Enjoy a communal lunch with fellow creatives and, if you like, explore the serene grounds on an optional property tour. Let the land, the quiet, and your imagination guide you. Join Kristen Fogle, Jill Hall, and me for a day of writing, reflecting, and connecting with nature at the beautiful J&J Ranch
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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 be lost when we write from our own lives.
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Writing the Micro Memoir
WEDNESDAYS, 6:30-8:30 PM (IN PERSON)
JULY 23 & JULY 30, 2025Within the fast-growing atmosphere of hybrid forms of literature and somewhere between the six-word memoir and the book-length memoir stands the Micro Memoir. Often called Flash Memoir or Memoir in Fragments, these tiny, beautiful stories aren’t life squeezed down to fit into few pages (or less), but a captured moment in a life that opens into deeper, meaningful insights into the human experience. In the first of this two-part workshop, we’ll study the genre and read published examples of these small stories then we’ll try our hand at creating stories of our own. Part 2 will be a read and critique of the edited stories.
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Little Things Mean a Lot – Using Small Details for Great Effect
SUNDAY JULY 27, 2025 (IN PERSON)
2–4 PMThe way to move the reader from reading to experiencing your writing is through the effective use of detail. Not enough detail and you’re awash in a sea of generalities; too many and you must slog your way through seaweed to get to shore. But the right detail in the right place will bring the writing to life and include the reader in the world of the story. This workshop will address the use of the smallest of details that can bring the story to life through description, character, dialogue, and narrative, and will focus on how to select and render the telling detail. In-workshop exercises will invite writers to create their own small details.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Writers in Weird Places – A Road Trip Promptapalooza with Kristen Fogle & Judy Reeves
From August 1–10, we’re hitting the road—starting in San Diego and making our way north to Ashland—hosting generative writing workshops via Zoom from some of the weirdest, wildest spots we can find.
Here’s the twist: we’ll use each location’s atmosphere as inspiration for writing prompts! You'll be able to tune in from anywhere, write with us live, and let the weirdness fuel your creativity. More information and an opportunity to sign up for writing workshops is coming soon. Stay tuned and get ready for the weird and fun!
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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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