New Orleans Writing Marathon

Started by the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project back in 1994, the New Orleans Writing Marathon draws on ideas from Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down the Bones. Groups of writers split up and go off on their own, writing down observations and thoughts, and later the groups get back together and share their work, without comment or criticisms. It sounds like a great idea to do anywhere, on a smaller scale, just to get ideas flowing...

This article gives a good overview:

http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/315