Exclusive Writing Retreat on the Maine Coast
June 4-11, 2022 Sol's Cliff House, Bar Harbor, Maine
Limited to Twelve Writers
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If your application is accepted, here's what you can expect at the writing retreat ...
Hours and Hours of Uninterrupted Writing Time
Outside on the terrace or inside your private room or at the large dining room table, in the cozy living room, the library, or a special nook in this impressive retreat house, built in 1914 by New York lawyer-turned-novelist Arthur Train—one of the last surviving “summer cottages” of Bar Harbor’s gilded-era golden age—you'll have ample time to do what you wish. This is your time to apply what you’re learning in the way that works best for you: write, revise, journal, reflect, think, plan, write some more. All of what you do during your writing time will inform your Writing Contract, the tool we'll build together that you’ll take home to ensure you will finish your novel.
Dedicated One-on-One Time
with Award-Winning Novelist and Writing Teacher, Joan Dempsey
Come on up to "Joan's Tower" for your private coaching session. I’m here for you, so we’ll plan our session according to what you most need. Got a character who needs further development? We’ll bring her to life. Feeling concerned about whether your writing is really any good? We’ll turn that concern around so fast you’ll forget you ever worried about it. Need to find time in your schedule to focus on your novel? We won’t just find time, we’ll create it! Whatever will help you finish your novel, we’ll tackle it together.
Special Craft Workshop with Cynthia Underwood Thayer
One afternoon, we'll have a dedicated craft workshop on a topic TBD based on the group's needs, facilitated by local author and writing teacher, Cynthia Underwood Thayer. Thayer's first novel, Strong for Potatoes, published by St. Martin's Press, won the Rep's Choice Award, was named best new fiction by Ingram Books, and was a Barnes & Noble Discover book. Her second novel, A Certain Slant of Light, was also published by St. Martin's Press. The condensed version was published by Reader's Digest in English, Portuguese, Danish, and Swedish. Algonquin Books published A Brief Lunacy in hardcover, and Random House published the paperback the following year. All three books were named BookSense books.
Group Time
You’ll have several opportunities to gather together as a group and talk about various aspects of craft and anything else that's on your mind related to your work. We’ll all put on our best thinking caps and respond with constructive observations, suggestions, questions, celebrations, resources and whatever other ideas we believe will help. You'll also have opportunities to read from your own work if you wish—the retreat provides a secure environment in which you can read a brief excerpt from your novel-in-progress and hear readings by your retreat companions.
Before you leave, we'll gather as a group and each writer will create their own personalized Writing Contract. This contract will help set you up for post-retreat success. Capitalize on your momentum from this week and finish your novel!
Amazing Meals Provided by Our Own Personal Chef
All you have to do is eat when you’re hungry . . . no need to decide what to make for a meal, no cooking, no cleanup. Isn’t it time someone catered to you? Our own Personal Chef, Eliza Bishop from Milk & Honey, will make us nourishing and scrumptious food that will leave you feeling both energetic and pampered! Fair warning . . . you might not want to go home.
Downtime
Creativity takes energy, and energy needs to be rejuvenated; this week is all about what you need to be your best creative self. Walk with new friends out the door to local trails down to the water or hike the nearby trails at Acadia National Park, stroll into Bar Harbor for a visit to the bookstore, take a nap in your room or out on the patio overlooking the water, read a book from the retreat house library . . . whatever works to support you!
Give yourself the gift of time to finish your novel.
Meet Our Special Guest, Monica Wood
"There is no such thing as wasted writing."
Our guest for dinner one evening at this retreat is Monica Wood, novelist, memoirist, and playwright. Her most recent novel, The One-in-a-Million Boy, has been published in 22 languages in 30 countries and won a 2017 Nautilus Award (Gold) and the New England Society Book Award. She is also the author of When We Were the Kennedys, a New England bestseller, Oprah magazine summer-reading pick, and winner of the May Sarton Memoir Award and the 2016 Maine Literary Award. Her novel Any Bitter Thing was an ABA bestseller and Book Sense Top Ten pick. Her other fiction includes Ernie’s Ark, which has been excerpted on NPR's "Selected Shorts" and selected by several towns and cities as their "One Book, One Community" read; My Only Story, a finalist for the Kate Chopin Award; and Secret Language, her first novel. Her widely anthologized short stories have won a Pushcart Prize and been featured on public radio. Her nonfiction has appeared in Oprah, The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Parade, and many other publications. Her first play, Papermaker, debuted at Portland Stage in an extended run, its bestselling play ever. Her second play, The Half-Light, debuted at Portland Stage in 2019. Monica is a lifelong Mainer and lives in Maine with her husband.
Meet Our Special Guest, Robin Talbot
"One of Stonecoast’s fundamental values is to foster culturally diverse writers who have a clear understanding of the role writers play in social activism ... We are very proud of our program ... as one of the nation's top five low-residency programs."
Our guest for dinner on Sunday, June 7, is Robin Talbot. Robin is the associate director of Stonecoast MFA at the University of Southern Maine where she is also the faculty advisory to the Stonecoast Review. Robin has written two scripts for documentary films: A Call to Action: A Community's Dream, which outlines the struggle for civil rights in Maine; and Starting Over: Understanding and Supporting Refugee and Immigrant Experiences. Robin holds an MA in arts administration and is an expert in the area of writing for social justice.
She has served as a board member for Black Education and Cultural History, the NAACP Excellence in Education (Portland Branch), the University of Southern Maine’s Multicultural Curriculum Sub-committee, Women’s Resource Center Advisory Board, Festival of Arts and Scholarship committee, and People of Color, Voices in Unity Conference.
Meet Our Special Guest, Susan Conley
"I realized with certainty, half-way through the book, that I was going to have to write my own darn novel, because the novel that I’d wanted to read—the novel I’d bought and was holding in my hand—was not the novel I hoped it would be."
Our guest for dinner on Thursday, September 3, is Susan Conley. Susan is a Mainer and the author of four books including her new novel Elsey Come Home. Her memoir The Foremost Good Fortune, was the first book she published and it was an Oprah Magazine Top Ten Pick, an Entertainment Weekly Memoir to Read, and the winner of the Maine Literary Award for Memoir. Her novel Paris Was the Place was a People Magazine Top Pick, a Slate Magazine Summer Read, and an Elle Magazine Readers Prize Selection. Her third book was a whole other animal: a photography collaboration called Stop Here This is the Place, which was a Real Simple Magazine Must Read and also won the Maine Literary Award for Publishing Excellence.
Susan's writing has appeared in other places like The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Harvard Review, The North American Review, The New England Review, Ploughshares, and other magazines. She's received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Maine Arts Commission, and the Massachusetts Arts Council. She grew up in Maine and loved living in Vermont, California, Boston and China before she moved back to Portland, Maine, where she lives now.
Susan is on the faculty of the Stonecoast Writing Program at the University of Southern Maine and is the co-founder of the Telling Room, a creative writing lab for kids in Portland.
Meet Our Special Guest, Lily King
"There are very few things I would love to do other than a life of writing."
Our guest for dinner on Tuesday, October 20, is Lily King. Lily grew up in Massachusetts and received her B.A. in English Literature from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her M.A. in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. She has taught English and Creative Writing at several universities and high schools in this country and abroad.
Lily’s first novel, The Pleasing Hour (1999) won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and was a New York Times Notable Book and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her second, The English Teacher, was a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year, a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and the winner of the Maine Fiction Award. Her third novel, Father of the Rain (2010), was a New York Times Editors Choice, a Publishers Weekly Best Novel of the Year and winner of both the New England Book Award for Fiction and the Maine Fiction Award. It was translated into various languages.
Lily's novel, Euphoria, won the Kirkus Award for Fiction 2014, the New England Book Award for Fiction 2014 and was a finalist in the National Book Critics Circle Awards. Euphoria was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times Book Review. It was included in TIME's Top 10 Fiction Books of 2014 and the Amazon Best Books of 2014. Reviewed on the cover of The New York Times Book Review, Emily Eakin called Euphoria, “a taut, witty, fiercely intelligent tale of competing egos and desires in a landscape of exotic menace.” The novel is being translated into numerous languages and a feature film is underway.
Her new novel, Writers and Lovers, is forthcoming in March 2020.
Lily is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship and a Whiting Writer's Award. Her short fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and several anthologies.
