Workshops in the Wilderness
Nature | Story | Community
TrueElk Teachers
Christie Tate
Christie Tate is a Chicago-based author and essayist. Her debut memoir Group-- How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life, was published in Fall 2020 and was a Reese Witherspoon book club pick and an instant New York Times bestseller. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review, The Rumpus, Atticus Review, Carve Magazine, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. Kiese Laymon chose her essay, Promised Lands, as the winner of the New Ohio Review's 2019 nonfiction essay contest. Her work explores alienation, perfection, addiction, recovery, therapy, and friendship. Her second memoir about female friendship will be published by Avid Reader Press in 2023.
Sonya Lea
Sonya Lea writes on memory and identity. Her memoir, Wondering Who You Are, about what happened after her husband lost the memory of their life, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award.
Wondering has won awards and garnered praise in a number of publications including Oprah Magazine, People, and the BBC, who named it a “top ten book.” Her essays have appeared in Salon, The Southern Review, Brevity, Guernica, Ms. Magazine, Good Housekeeping, The Prentice Hall College Reader, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, The Butter, and more.
Lea creates retreats and teaches writing in the USA and Canada, including in Banff, Canada's first national park. She also teaches at Hugo House in Seattle, online at Corporeal Writing, and to women veterans. She speaks at conferences, universities and festivals.
Her short film, Every Beautiful Thing, won two awards for direction, and several awards for score. She has also written screenplays.
Originally from Kentucky, she lives in Seattle and the Canadian Rockies.
