Retreats/Conferences/Workshops

Retreats, conferences, or workshops - referring here to a writing experience that usually lasts a few days in a row, often recurring annually, as opposed to a workshop that you attend weekly or monthly. The conference is often something larger, possibly at an academic site, and retreat evokes a more bucolic setting. Previously I would have said these are something you would travel to, but now sometimes even these are virtual. Here is a checklist to consider the many variations if you are considering attending one, teaching at one, or even facilitating one.

Where – Not just what city, state, or country but what type of setting? The Frost Farm Poetry Conference happens at an historic site, Robert Frost’s former home, now a New Hampshire State Park. The Marge Piercy Intensive Poetry Workshop meets in a conference room in the Senior Center of Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The Cork International Poetry Festival meets at a few sites in the city of Cork, Ireland (although it was virtual in 2021). I facilitate the Fall Writerfest which meets at the Pyramid Life Center, an Adirondack retreat center in Paradox, NY.

Price – What counts here is not just the price itself but what is included – all meals/some meals?

Admission to any workshop within the program or is the one workshop the whole event? Often the conference is covered with one fee and you are on your own with a list of recommended accommodations in the area. This can vary a lot from one writing experience to another so be sure you know what is included before you register. The Fall Writerfest costs $300 total including meals, room, morning workshops, afternoon seminars, and even kayaking and hiking if you choose. In 2021 we are running from Sunday to Thursday because the center is reserving Fridays for a deep cleaning day as a Covid precaution. Hopefully in 2022 we will be back to Sunday through Friday. There is a small store where you can buy a T-shirt, water bottle, or something like that; but once you get there you don’t need to spend any more money. The price is exceptionally low and reflects that the accommodations are rustic and the meals are whatever is being served. There are a few options, but you won’t be handed a menu. The presenters and organizers are not getting paid a lot so you are not being charged a lot. That may work for you or you may prefer to go someplace more upscale.

Genre – Is the conference one genre or multi genre? At Fall Writerfest we have five workshops: creative non-fiction, play writing, fiction, poetry, and work-in-progress. At the Frost Farm Poetry Conference there are five workshops – all poetry. The Marge Piercy Intensive Poetry Workshop tells you right up front. It’s one poetry workshop.

Faculty – Conference websites usually list the faculty. For some attendees this is the draw. It’s a chance to work with a writer they admire particularly if that writer usually teaches in an academic setting and the conference participant is not going to actually enroll in that school or do a degree program. If you are not familiar with the faculty, you may get a chance to read some of their work posted or check out their published books. For other attendees it’s the setting or topic that brings them in.

Entry – How do you get in? Is it juried, requiring you to submit a writing sample? Do you apply or just register? Can you register but need to apply for admission to a master class? Is it restricted by age group or gender? I have attended a women’s writing retreat at the Pyramid Life Center for years. One of the reasons I started the Fall Writerfest is to have a retreat at the same place but open to both men and women.

The three levels of participation are attending, teaching, and facilitating. If you want to do the last two, I’d encourage you to attend as many as you can, maybe one or two a year as your budget and schedule allow. Besides learning your likes and dislikes, it’s a great way to travel, particularly if you travel alone as I usually do. I arrive by myself, but join a group of like-minded people who often become friends. Attending a retreat or conference increases your network of writers and often opens up other opportunities. Another poet I met at the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference invited me to join the Hyla Brook Poets, a monthly workshop meeting at the Frost Farm in Derry, NH. The women I have met over the years at the Women’s Writing Retreat have formed a close knit group of friends. I credit that retreat with helping me get ready to do my MFA.

If you’d like to pursue teaching at one of these, I suggest you attend at least a few and then come in with some teaching and /or publishing experience. The teaching experience can be at a community center, a local library, or local writing center if it is not at the high school or college level. I got my first teaching experience by offering writing workshops at the Belfast (Maine) Senior College, an enrichment program for people aged fifty and older. I also now teach at the Women’s Writing Retreat and at the Fall Writerfest at the Pyramid Life Center. Some conferences have the same faculty every year; others have different people each year. At the Fall Writerfest our plan is to have a mix of new and returning faculty.

If you want to make the leap to facilitating one of these, that’s a big deal, a big commitment. Go through the list of considerations already mentioned. Where will you do this? Will you travel as a group? Meet at a villa somewhere or at a hotel conference room? Will you offer multi or single genre? What’s the fee and what is included? Will it be juried or registration only? Will you do it alone or with another writer? When I started Fall Writerfest, I knew better than to go it alone and asked my friend Nelle Stanton to share the experience and responsibility with me. We’ve been friends since we met at the Women’s Writing Retreat over ten years ago. Our experience both overlaps and compliments each other. She jokes that I’m the Dean of the Faculty and she is the Provost since I line up the workshop presenters and she handles much of the nuts and bolts issues. To organize one of these had best be an effort of joy. There may be people making a lot of money on a retreat; Nelle and I are not among them.

We are fortunate to have a long standing relationship with a beautiful retreat center in the Adirondacks. Getting permission to run our program there was relatively easy for us because we were already known at Pyramid. We were physically there when we asked the director in person. Since the center takes the registrations; we do not handle that end of things, but we go out of our way to handle inquiries. Our program is not juried. People register on the Pyramid website and then let me know which workshop they want. I’m able to confirm their place in their first (or second) workshop once they have paid in full.  

On the first morning of the Marge Piercy Intensive Poetry Workshop, I mentioned I had driven down to Cape Cod the day before - straight from the Frost Farm Poetry Conference. Marge called me a workshopaholic. She got that right. I attend, I teach, and I facilitate.

Here are some of the programs mentioned in this post.

Frost Farm Poetry Conference http://www.frostfarmpoetry.org/conference-overview

Marge Piercy Intensive Poetry Workshop https://margepiercy.com/intensive-poetry-workshop

also, my blog post on Marge Piercy’s admission process http://breatheherepoetry.blogspot.com/2019/11/five-poems-to-marge-piercy.html

Cork International Poetry Festival https://www.corkpoetryfest.net/about.html

Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference http://www.colrainpoetry.com/

and Fall Writerfest https://fallwriterfest.blogspot.com/

also Pyramid Life Center https://pyramidlife.org/

 

 

 

 

 

 

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