Emily Hanlon's Writing Retreat For Women
Bar Harbor, Maine -- Fall 2020
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My Writing and Creativity Retreat for Women has been an annual event since 1998, when I began talking to my classes about holding a weeklong writing retreat for women. It would be a retreat where the location inspired our shared creativity and we wouldn't be interrupted by the outside world.
There was such excitement about the idea that one of the women offered her beach home on Edisto Island, South Carolina. Within weeks, eighteen women had signed up and I began planning my first Retreat. I hired a private chef so we’d have no responsibilities and we could write in an intimate community of creative women for the entire week.
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The retreat was a wonderful success and I began holding one every year. We journeyed to England, Italy, and throughout the U.S. Although the places were all beautiful, it was the community of writers and our shared love of fiction writing and creativity that defined these magical weeks. After holding seventeen annual retreats, I realized a long-awaited dream in 2015; I was able to build two homes on my spectacular, three-acre private oceanfront property in Bar Harbor, Maine. Adjacent to the incomparable Acadia National Park, the retreat had finally found a permanent home!
This Year's Retreat Takes Place October 3rd-10th, 2020
In Bar Harbor, Maine, Home to Acadia National Park!
Women who write fiction share aspects of their creative life that need community to flower. In my Writing and Creativity Retreats, this community is embodied by our Circle. Whether we're writing, sharing, critiquing, feasting on meals, experiencing the awe-inspiring landscape of our surroundings, listening to open readings, or chatting with new friends, you'll find the freedom and inspiration that such a community brings.
"My favorite part of Emily's Retreat was being with the women in the Circle. I loved watching the process flow. The shared insights made me feel part of the flow and the magic." |
The Source Of Our Writing Is Our Creativity.
In our daily sessions, we explore possibilities for our characters and plot that stretch the boundaries of our creativity. We seek out characters whom we might otherwise never discover. We conceive plot twists and turns that might never before have escaped the fetters we often put on our imagination.
We do this in a variety of ways throughout the week, including writing from a series of picture prompts, playing the What If? game, and character interviews. Knowing how to trust your imagination is the gift for everyone to bring home from this retreat!
In our daily sessions, we explore possibilities for our characters and plot that stretch the boundaries of our creativity. We seek out characters whom we might otherwise never discover. We conceive plot twists and turns that might never before have escaped the fetters we often put on our imagination.
We do this in a variety of ways throughout the week, including writing from a series of picture prompts, playing the What If? game, and character interviews. Knowing how to trust your imagination is the gift for everyone to bring home from this retreat!
"The retreat jump-started my writing in a way I never thought possible. The words tumbled out, and I am overjoyed. I come away from this magical place that invites the land and the sea into my imagination with a full heart."
- Cynthia Ayers
"The retreat opened me to the joy of writing; it showed me that writing can come from anywhere - an unusual prompt, a fragment of a poem, a thought shared by a new friend. It showed me that my writing is valued and enjoyed."
- Lisa Friedlander, California Retreat, 2018