SDW Four-Hour Retreat Recap: Birmingham Retreat with Javacia Harris Bowser, Tamara Harper, and Holly Carlisle

Our first in-person SDW Four-Hour Retreat with Javacia Harris Bowser, Tamara Harper, Holly Carlisle, and me was on Sunday, March 26th, at Church Street Coffee & Books. The retreat was lovely in so many ways. All of the participants had a great time and left nourished. I had a great time and left nourished! I told everyone I’d follow up via email the next day because I wanted to post a retreat recap here on the SDW website, provide more information and links about the retreat leaders, and include a brief participant survey.

Then the Nashville shooting happened. And, sometimes, when hard things happen (especially those that hit close to home), I have to pause. I just don’t have a high capacity to hold space for hard things and do all of the writing and work I want and need to do.

Then I get behind. Then I do things super late or delete them from my to-do list. Or both.

So. Here I am, 15 days late, with a brief retreat recap. Which is totally fine.

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All of our SDW Four-Hour Retreats are designed to help participants integrate their creativity and other areas of life, climb out of any ruts they might’ve fallen into, and move forward with more sustainable rhythms and practices.

The sessions led by Javacia, Tamara, Holly, and me accomplished that purpose and were a perfect fit for a half-day retreat for anyone who wanted to honor their need to make art and nourish their soul.

Javacia’s session on journaling was super informative and provided several fresh ideas for developing a regular journaling practice. Then Tamara guided us through a meditative sewing session that helped everyone have a break from the mental work of journaling and writing. My session was next with a brief discussion and instruction on incorporating daily (or almost daily!) nourishing rhythms. And Holly closed us out with a seasonal flower sketch and a glimpse into her creative process (which gave me ideas for four new essays).

Because the SDW Four-Hour Retreats are retreats, the participants had a reasonable amount of time to journal, sew, and experiment with other nourishing rhythms. We perfectly balanced active listening, creative time, and free time.

Working with Javacia, Tamara, and Holly on this retreat series has been an honor. I have known these talented women for several years, and seeing them grow in their creative work and other areas of life has been wonderful. I have so much respect for each of them and how they inhabit their stories, work, and creative pursuits in Birmingham and beyond. These women have navigated trials and joys, success and heartbreak. They help me know I’m not alone on many different levels. They help me stay in this town when I think the grass is greener elsewhere. Birmingham is home to more than our share of talented people, and it’s been a delight to partner with these three for this series of retreats.

Here’s more information about them with links and bios:

Javacia Harris Bowser & See Jane Write
Instagram | Twitter | javacia.com

Javacia Harris Bowser is an award-winning freelance journalist and the author of the essay collection Find Your Way Back: How to Write Your Way Through Anything. In Birmingham, she’s best known as the founder of See Jane Write, which a friend of hers once called “the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pens.” See Jane Write is a website and community for women who write and blog that Javacia founded in 2011 in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Today, See Jane Write serves and brings together women from across the country and around the world. Once named one of Birmingham’s Top 40 Under 40, Javacia believes we can all write our way to the life of our dreams – a message she often conveys to the women of See Jane Write. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020, she learned how to write her way through her worst nightmare, too.

Javacia was included in Southern Living magazine’s list of Innovators Changing the South, alongside household names like Dolly Parton and Reese Witherspoon and is a recipient of the 2022 Alabama State Council on the Arts Fellowship. With a focus on women’s lifestyle, wealth, and wellness, Javacia has written for a number of local, regional and national media outlets including USA Today, Business Insider, HerMoney.com, Good Grit magazine, and The Birmingham Times. In 2020, her column for Birmingham magazine was awarded Best Magazine Column by the Alabama Press Association.

Javacia is a proud graduate of the journalism programs at the University of Alabama and the University of California at Berkeley.

When she isn’t writing, you can find Javacia working out, eating tacos, listening to Beyoncé or spending time with her husband Edward.

Tamara Harper & Smallwoods Studios
Instagram | smallwoods-studios.com

Tamara Harper is an embroidery artist living in Birmingham, Alabama. In 2019, she founded Smallwoods Studios as a business offering hand sewn items as well as embroidery patterns, tutorials, kits, fabric, and hand sewing supplies for DIYers. Tamara upcycles discontinued upholstery fabrics to create high end, one of a kind bags. Tamara’s work is currently featured with Madewell. Other recent collaborations include the Clinton Foundation, Country Living, and Martha Stewart Weddings

Holly Carlisle & ROSEGOLDEN
Instagram | rosegolden.com

Holly Carlisle is an artist, teacher, and consummate creative. Over the past 12 years of working as the creative director of ROSEGOLDEN, her custom event design, planning and floristry studio, she has developed a singular style that is defined by place and time.

Holly’s dedication to using seasonal materials from her environment —whether cut from her garden or foraged from the side of the road— allows her to redefine the concept of beauty in her own terms. Her work expresses a seasonal harmony that is evocative and heady. Holly’s work has been widely published and her reputation as a teacher has earned her many opportunities to teach here domestically and all over the world.


Charlotte Donlon helps her readers and clients notice how they belong to themselves, others, God, and the world. Charlotte is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder of Spiritual Direction for Writers™. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. She’s currently writing her next book, Spiritual Direction for Writers, which will be published by Eerdmans in 2024.

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Daily Nourishment with Catherine Ricketts: April 10- April 14, 2023