Sotterranea

Writing the Sensual:
Life, Death, & Pleasure

A 6-Day Writing Immersion and Transformative Journey in Palermo Sicily led by
MaryBeth Bonfiglio & Lisa Marie Basile

From June 5—June 11 we will gather as an intimate group in the subterranean & poetic city of Palermo, Sicily to explore, experience, and write the sensuality of life and death.

Uncover the story within the story—a journey into the cave of your creative self, shaped and informed by this particular place, Palermo.

Are you yearning for a spark of creative fire, a sea of fertile prose, a container and community for expression, or a space to discover passion, pleasure, poetry, & the story of life and death?

Come to Palermo with us, our favorite underworld city—one of the most sensuous, mysterious cities on Earth. In Palermo, life pulses with the richness of history, devotion, and raw beauty, all while its shadow aspect cradles us in its palm. It is a space of sacred excavation—helping us to honor what is not (yet!) seen, what lives below. 

Let’s open up our creative vessels in this briney, beautiful, and complex city together — and ask:

What makes a story? A life? A death? What transforms a narrative? What is written pleasure? What is sensual prose? Where do these land in my body? What is the language they speak?

Beneath our layers, who are we? Who do we become when overwhelmed by joy or grief, when we live fully—bursting, alive, and undone? How do we write the shadow self? How do we write ourselves into the light?

If there’s a place to unearth those questions, it’s here. Palermo invites you to dive into its chthonic depths—a city steeped in alleyway shrines, ancient rituals, sacred edifice, and a poetic darkness that’s as alluring as it is inspiring.

This writing immersion is your portal to uncover the story within the story—a journey into the cave of your creative self, shaped and informed by this particular place. 

Palermo—as a city of art and wildness and bodies flowing like lava—holds space for your words, offering a sanctuary for expression: prose, poetry, essays, lists, letters, elegies, ancestral downloads, or fragments of thought splashed across watercolor paper with black ink. 

But while Palermo is both a container and a muse, we invite you to explore life, death, and the sensual in whatever way the deeper stories or ideas or feelings emerge through you—be it a poem of grief or a story of personal transformation. Palermo is a mirror, reflecting back at you the very things you seek.

Palermo is many layers — and so are you. 

Sotterranea is not just a writing retreat. Yes, it is about place, but it’s mostly about you. It is a sensual, somatic, and spiritual experience. It is a creative community encounter.

Over six unforgettable days, you’ll explore Palermo (its many layers, as well as your own) through:

  • Immersive Writing Workshops

    Tap into the deep well of emotions and shadows as we guide you to write with authenticity, vulnerability, and power.

  • Sublime Surroundings

    From underground altars and Arab-Norman architecture to the chipped frescoes of ancient churches to bustling markets, the city becomes your muse.

  • Sacred Practices

    Through daily somatic exercises, oracle guidance, and mindful stillness, we’ll help you tune into what’s moving within and around you.

  • Shared Experiences

    Together, we’ll savor Palermo’s essence—its food, architecture, and inherent spiritual energy—allowing your own stories to unfold.

  • Interntional Journeys

    We will discover sacred and historically important sites that will support and inspire our writing experience and connection to ourselves and the city.

  • Supportive Environment

    Each day, you will have a beautiful space to come and write, supported by somatic practices to contain your sacred writing experiences. You can journal, take notes, write full poems or short stories—do whatever feels right!

During Sotterranea, we will go to the places under the fertile and salty sea of our creative bodies. Just like our bodies, Palermo is a salty and fertile city that is informed by what is “underneath.”

Just imagine the word flow born from that. Just imagine having the space to be in this together. 

In Palermo, life and death are intertwined, each a celebration of the other. The stories of saints and goddesses, the textures of history, and the crossroads of cultures breathe life into this city. 

It is a place of multitudes, where modern life dances atop a layer of ancient dark energy. Here, we’ll write in the in-between—the space where mystery meets joy, where ecstasy dances with grief, where under meets over, and where the soul finds its voice.

Let us write this story together. 

Sotterranea is your invitation to slow down, listen, sense, and create. It’s a call to immerse yourself in the richness of Palermo and emerge transformed—a poetic soul in motion.

What will our time together look like?  

Each day we will be in rhythm and also living within sacred and specific daily themes—both in our experience of the city as well as in our writing. Our themes are:

  • Pilgrimage {in with the cave mother}

  • Chthonia {what’s underneath}

  • Sensuality {of decay}

  • Death {letting go}

  • Bacchanalia {pleasure + celebration}

This Is Your Invitation

The places we visit will be our water, our fire, our inspiration— to wake our inner stories: 

  • Subterranean sites where you can touch and feel the old bones of the city

  • Sites of ancient nature, like Piazza Marina

  • Private tour of the vibrant Mercato Ballarò with (link Cheeky Chef 

  • Monte Pellegrino to pay our respect to Santa Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo 

  • A 700-year-old monastery space that serves baked goods 

And many more spirited and sensual places — there is truly no shortage! We will offer stories and context of each of our carefully chosen places to visit within the city, so that the history and layers of place can land within you and bring you deeper into your own poetics. The story and spirit of place are there to inform you of your story, your spirit of place in the world.

A note on accessibility: During this immersion, we will be walking within the city at least a couple of miles per day. Expect cobble and steps when walking. A van will transport us up to Monte Pellegrino, however.

We stay open, curious, and electrically receptive to the muses, the oracles, and the particles of this ancient, multicultural, time-decayed and deliciously layered city. And we write. 

What Is Included

  • Approx. 9 meals 

  • All accommodations (each guest will be staying at the Quintocanto Hotel).

  • Transport within the city during our travels 

  • Daily writing workshops 

  • Daily somatic and oracle practices

  • Entry fee into any museums/places of interest 

What Is Not Included

  • Airfare

  • Transport to and from the airport in Palermo (public transport is inexpensive and accessible)

  • Approx. 8 meals

MaryBeth Bonfiglio
& Lisa Marie Basile

your co-guides

MaryBeth Bonfiglio
I’m a second-generation Sicilian and Italian American writer, independent researcher ancestral connection facilitator, and the founder of Radici Siciliane. I received my MFA in creative non fiction from Antioch University and have been leading writing workshops since 2014. I’ve published one book of poetry, Dear Earth, and completed a memoir in essays on longing and belonging. My writing has been published in the LA Weekly, The Boston Globe, Amulet Magazine, and many others. My most recent essay was published in print in VIA from Bordighera Press / Calendra Institute. I spend 3 months a year in Sicily holding space for people to savor the island and connect to its essence. Palermo is my favorite city in the world and I’ve spent many, may days wandering the streets, exploring her underworld and writing from my own subterranean body.

Lisa Marie Basile
I am a Sicilian and Italian-American writer and poet whose paternal grandmother was born in Palermo, Sicilia (the city of my heart, where I was married last year). My paternal grandfather is Calabrian and Campanian. I have explored Italy & Sicily over many trips, including with Radici Siciliane. I’m the author of a few books of poetry & nonfiction, including Saint of, Andalucía, and City Witchery, (which examines the connection between place and the sacred), among others. I’ve led writing workshops at Manhattanville College, Emerson College, Pace University, The Moon Studio, Writing The Cosmos, and more. My work has appeared in The New York Times, Best American Experimental Writing, Ovunque Siamo, Best Small Fictions, and more. I hold an MFA in Writing from The New School in NYC and I edit Luna Luna Magazine. I am a foster youth & chronic illness awareness advocate, bringing themes of the body and belonging to my work and travel. Read more here.

Investment: 

$3600 (single room)

We offer both pay-in-full and four-month payment plan options. 

Questions?

Learn about our cultural agreements here.

Learn about redistributing money in Sicily here.

Want to know which immersion is right for you? Click here.

Want support traveling before or after Radici immersions? Send us an email. 

Testimonials

  • MaryBeth did such a beautiful job of accompanying the group of us into an open journey full of rich experiences.It has become a significant value along the path of discovering who I am. I felt a deep level of connection immediately to the land, and to the people drawn together with me.

    ~N.G., 2024

  • Just come on the trip. If you’ve been thinking about it but you’re not sure you’ll fit in for whatever reason, take a chance - come on the trip. This island has so much to teach you if you are willing to receive it, and it’s will be a beautiful experience. 

    ~S.N., 2024

  • The spirit of the Sicilian people- warm, generous, exuberant, and resilient. Every experience was deeply embodied - I felt so connected to my flesh and blood, the land, the ancestors.

    ~A.S., 2024