Our Newport retreat offers the opportunity for writers of all genres and levels to work alongside award-winning authors & editors to hone their craft and expand their writing skills, while working on new or existing projects. Famous for its seafood and coastline, we chose this location for its inspiring beauty and history. During free sessions in the afternoon, take a mansion tour of gilded-era Newport, visit the Newport Museum, listen to some Newport jazz classics, or just relax beside the ocean watching the sailboats and let the stunning location influence your writing.
Tuition includes:
- Shared room lodging
- Daily creative writing workshops
- Craft seminars
- One-on-one manuscript consultations
- Toasts
- An orientation dinner
- A farewell brunch
- Yoga and meditation classes
During the retreat, writers and yoga practitioners will learn craft techniques alongside award-winning and internationally-renowned authors such as Kathleen Spivack (fiction, poetry, nonfiction), Stephen Aubrey (playwriting, screenwriting), Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), & Diana Norma Szokolyai (poetry, nonfiction). Yoga and meditation will be lead by Elissa Lewis.
Included in the $650 tuition are all daily creative writing workshops, craft of writing seminars, one-on-one manuscript consultation, orientation dinner, toasts, and farewell brunch, plus daily yoga and meditation classes. Shared room lodging is included. Please send us an email to inquire about partial attendance ($375 or $475 with shared lodging). Please inquire about optional add-ons include aromatherapy, massage, and reiki healing. There are limited seats for this workshop so apply early! There are limited seats, so apply early! The extended deadline for admittance for our retreat is March 15, 2015. Apply at cww.submittable.com.
Faculty includes internationally renowned author and writing coach Kathleen Spivack (fiction, poetry, nonfiction), Stephen Aubrey (playwriting, screenwriting), Diana Norma Szokolyai (poetry, nonfiction), Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), and Elissa Lewis (yoga, meditation).
If you’d like to join us in Newport, please apply online at cww.submittable.com by March 15, 2015 and include $5 application screening fee along with a 5-page writing sample. (Due to limited seats, early applications are encouraged, but check for rolling admission after deadline, depending on availability).
Extended Deadline: March 15, 2015
Featured Faculty:
Stephen Aubrey is a Brooklyn-based writer, editor, dramaturg, lecturer, storyteller and recovering medievalist. His writing has appeared in Publishing Genius, Commonweal, The Brooklyn Review, Forté, Pomp & Circumstance, and The Outlet. He is also a co-founder and the resident dramaturg and playwright of The Assembly Theater Company. His plays have been produced at The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, The Flea Theater, The Collapsable Hole, The Brick Theater, Symphony Space, the Abingdon Theater Complex, UNDER St Marks, The Philly Fringe and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where his original play, We Can’t Reach You, Hartford, was nominated for a 2006 Fringe First Award.
Kathleen Spivack is the author of A History of Yearning, winner of the Sows Ear International Poetry Prize 2010, first runner up in the New England Book Festival, and winner of the London Book Festival; Moments of Past Happiness (Earthwinds/Grolier Editions 2007); The Beds We Lie In (Scarecrow 1986), nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; The Honeymoon (Graywolf 1986); Swimmer in the Spreading Dawn (Applewood 1981); The Jane Poems (Doubleday 1973); Flying Inland (Doubleday 1971); Robert Lowell and His Circle (2011) and a novel, Unspeakable Things. She is a recipient of the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award 2010, the 2010 Erica Mumford Award, and the 2010 Paumanok Award. Published in numerous magazines and anthologies, some of her work has been translated into French. Other publications include The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Massachusetts Review, Virginia Quarterly, The Southern Review, Harvard Review, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Agni, New Letters, and others. Her work is featured in numerous anthologies. She has also won several International Solas Prizes for “Best Essays.”
Diana Norma Szkoloyai is author of the poetry books Roses in the Snow and Parallel Sparrows (Finishing Line Press). Her writing and hybrid art have appeared in Lyre Lyre, Dr. Hurley’s Snake Oil Cure, The Fiction Project, Teachers as Writers, Polarity, The Boston Globe, The Dudley Review, Up the Staircase, Area Zinc Art Magazine, Belltower & the Beach, and Human Rights News. Founding Literary Arts Director of Chagall Performance Art Collaborative and co-director of the Cambridge Writer’s Workshop, she holds an Ed.M from Harvard and an M.A. in French Literature from the University of Connecticut.
Rita Banerjee is a writer, and received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University. She holds an MFA in Poetry and her writing has been published in Poets for Living Waters, The New Renaissance, The Fiction Project, Jaggery, The Crab Creek Review, The Dudley Review, Objet d’Art, Vox Populi, Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure, and Chrysanthemum among other journals. Her first collection of poems,Cracklers at Night, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2010 and received First Honorable Mention for Best Poetry Book at the 2011-2012 Los Angeles Book Festival. Her novella, A Night with Kali, was digitized by the Brooklyn Art-house Co-op in 2011. She is a co-director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, and her writing has been recently featured on HER KIND by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and on KBOO Radio’s APA Compass in Portland, Oregon.
Elissa Lewis is the Yoga & Arts Coordinator of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop. She began her journey with yoga in 2006, when she moved to France and made the practice part of her daily routine. She saw yoga as a lifestyle, not only a class, helping her to clear her mind and have more compassion for herself and others. In 2010 she moved to New York and completed her teacher training at Laughing Lotus, a creative, soulful yoga studio that teaches the student to ‘move like yourself.’ She’s taught private and group classes in Manhattan and Brooklyn ever since. Visit her website for informative yoga sequences and information.
Suggested Accommodations:
We encourage people to stay at the Architect’s Inn, as they are affiliated with Inn Bliss and will make your stay as comfortable as possible. They are offering a special discount for people on our retreat. Contact Nick Maione for details at (401)845-2547 and mention that you are with the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop. Discounts will depend on the particular room and number of nights you are staying between April 2-5, 2015.
(Detailed list with descriptions and locations available here.)
Bed & Breakfast:
Newport Blues Inn, average nightly price from $109-$269
Marshall Slocum Inn, average nightly price from $137-$175
Ivy Lodge, average nightly price from $139-$209
La Farge Perry House, average nightly price from $149-$269
Hydrangea House Inn, average nightly price from $150-$233
Sarah Kendall House, average nightly price from $150-$295
Beech Tree Inn & Cottage, average nightly price from $155-$202
Almondy Inn, average nightly price from $175-$290
Cliffside Inn, average nightly price from $175-$365
Samuel Durfee House, average nightly price from $186-$233
Frances Malbone House, average nightly prices from $207-$395
Mid-Range Hotel:
The Attwater, average nightly price from $119-$409
Newport Harbor Hotel & Marina, average nightly price from $155-$185
Mill Street Inn, average nightly prices from $168-$228
Hyatt Regency Newport, average nightly prices from $229-$379
Budget Hotel:
Mainstay Hotel & Conference Center, average nightly prices from $64-$82
Carriage House Inn, average nightly prices from $99
Courtyard Marriott Newport Middletown, average nightly prices from $99
AirBnb Rentals, prices vary
Cambridge Writers' Workshop 
