Extended Deadline – Apply to the CWW Summer Writing Retreat in Granada, Andalucía, Spain by May 1!

GranadaPoster2015May1Deadline

Join the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop on our summer writing & yoga retreat to Granada, Spain. Located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Andalucía, Granada is one of the gems of Spain and has inspired writers from Washington Irving to Salman Rushdie to Ali Smith. Indulge in delicious Andalucían cuisine and traditional Arab baths. Work on your existing manuscript, or look to the beauty and warmth of Granada to inspire all-new projects.

The retreat offers the opportunity for writers of all genres and levels to work alongside award-winning authors & editors like Peter Orner (fiction, nonfiction), Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), Diana Norma Szkoloyai (poetry, nonfiction), Jessica Reidy (fiction, poetry) and Elissa Lewis (yoga, meditation) to hone their craft and expand their writing skills, while working on new or existing projects.

Our Andalucían writing retreat will take place from August 3-10, 2015, and the cost of the workshop is $2950, which includes lodging, craft of writing seminars and writing workshops, yoga classes, room cleaning, and breakfast. Optional add-ons include reiki healing and aromatherapy sessions.

The retreat will be held at Hotel Guadalupe on Paseo de la Sabica in Granada, Spain.

If you’d like to join us in Granada, please apply online at cww.submittable.com by May 1, 2015, and include a $5 application screening fee and a 5-page writing sample. (Due to limited seats, early applications are encouraged, but check for rolling admission after deadline, depending on availability).

applyDeadline: May 1, 2015

Featured Faculty:

Peter OrnerPeter Orner Chicago born Peter Orner’s fiction and non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, Granta, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, The Southern Review, The Forward, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Ploughshares. Stories have been anthologized in Best American Stories and twice won a Pushcart Prize. Orner was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (2006), as well as the two-year Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship (2007-2008). A film version of one of Orner’s stories, “The Raft” with a screenplay by Orner and the film’s director, Rob Jones, is currently in production and stars Ed Asner.  Esther Stories (Houghton Mifflin/​ Mariner, 2001) was awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction, and was a Finalist for the Pen Hemingway Award and the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award. Esther Stories was a 2001 New York Times Notable Book.

RBRita 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.

DianaNormaDiana 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.

25ugmblJessica Reidy earned her MFA in Fiction at Florida State University and a B.A. from Hollins University. Her work is Pushcart-nominated and has appeared in Narrative Magazine as Short Story of the Week, The Los Angeles Review, Arsenic Lobster, and other journals. She’s a staff-writer and the Outreach Editor for Quail Bell Magazine, Managing Editor for VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts, Art Editor for The Southeast Review, and Visiting Professor for the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop retreats. She teaches creative writing and is a certified yoga instructor and Reiki Master. Jessica also works her Romani (Gypsy) family trades, fortune telling, energy healing, and dancing. Jessica is currently writing her first novel set in post-WWII Paris about Coco Charbonneau, the half-Romani burlesque dancer and fortune teller of Zenith Circus, who becomes a Nazi hunter. You can learn more at www.jessicareidy.com.

ElissaLewisElissa 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.

A Recap Of The Newport, Rhode Island 2015 Writing & Yoga Retreat

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Newport, Rhode Island Writing & Yoga Retreat! The retreat kicked off on Thursday night with dinner and a champagne toast. On Friday, Kathleen Spivack (author of With Robert Lowell and His Circle and Pulitzer Prize nominee) graced us with her presence.

Photo Apr 04, 11 42 38 AM

Executive Creative Director Rita Banerjee broke the ice with Literary Taboo followed by Weirding the World with renowned Brooklyn-based playwright Stephen Aubrey.

Photo Apr 04, 6 58 10 PM

Executive Artistic Director Norma Szkoloyai taught participants how to bring their voices from page to performance. Featured below is participant Claire Ince reading her piece alongside her own musical composition.

In the evening, Stephen Aubrey taught us how to break traditional Aristotelian structures during Against Aristotle: New Structures for New Stories.

A special thanks to Elissa Lewis who led Energizing Yoga every morning.

Photo Apr 04, 7 52 54 AM

Sound exciting? Join one of our upcoming retreats in Paris or Granada! To apply, visit cww.submittable.com. Applications for Paris must be submitted by May 5, 2015.

Register by March 15 for our Newport, RI Writing & Yoga Retreat (April 2-5, 2015)

newport2015poster


Join us April 2-5, 2015

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.

Newport1

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).

applyExtended 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, CommonwealThe 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 Houseaverage 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

CWW Writing & Yoga Retreat in Newport, Rhode Island (April 2-5, 2015) Class List

Newport1

Join the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop in Newport, Rhode Island for the opportunity to take these exciting classes taught by award-winning authors and editors. The 4-day retreat will allow participants to hone their craft and writing skills in fiction, poetry, non-fiction, screenwriting and playwriting.

Registration for the retreat ends on March 15, so apply while seats are still available.

Workshop on the Evocative Object
(with Diana Norma Szokolyai and Rita Banerjee)
Enjoy searching for and discovering evocative objects in your surroundings, and tell their stories through lyrical descriptions that will thrill the reader.

Literary Taboo (with Rita Banerjee)
Learn to play a literary game that will keep you on your wordsmithing toes. You will have to think of new ways to write about subjects, while avoiding clichés!

Your Voice: Bringing your Page to Performance (with Diana Norma Szokolyai)
Whether preparing for a literary reading or recording your poetry with musicians, it is important to develop your own voice because it is the vehicle for your words. In these sessions, you will connect with your inner voice to bring it outward, learning how to better create a bond between you and your audience.

Developing Your Manuscript for Publication (with Kathleen Spivack)
All genres, all levels welcome
Please choose only one project to work with, and bring all necessary materials. Plan to dedicate yourself fully to your writing project during the retreat. This course will look at beginnings, transitions, and choices of endings. We’ll discuss the many publication options, but if your manuscript isn’t ready for that yet, don’t worry. My goal is to help each of you shape your manuscript to the best of your ability. The classes offer encouragement, support and yes, the gentlest of pushes. We’ll work with the positive energy of the group to support you in your writing goals.

Weirding the World (with Stephen Aubrey)
“My mind affects my reality.” -Farad’n Corrino (in Frank Herbert’s Dune)
The script is not a flat work of literature, not a description in poetry of another world, but is in itself another world passing before you in time and space. Language is only one part of this world. The rest is space. And before we populate this space, we must create it.

Theater of the Impossible (with Stephen Aubrey)
From “Exit, pursued by a bear” to today, part of the joy of live performance has been in watching the difficult, the unlikely and the unstageable become staged. Instead of thinking of a play or script as a blueprint for a realist performance, this class encourages you to think of it as a challenge for potential collaborators. A problem to be solved instead of a recipe to be followed. In this class, we will explore the tension between imagination and execution in order to answer one of the central questions of playwriting: how do we create spectacle and what’s the purpose in doing so anyway?

Against Aristotle: New Structures for New Stories (with Stephen Aubrey)
For over two millennia, Aristotelian structure has dominated the Western sense of story. Protasis, epitasis, and catastrophe. Over and over. The same structures breeding the same stories. In this class, we’ll first look at what makes Aristotle’s ideas so seductive before investigating alternative ways of imagining and telling story. From collage/assembly to circular structure to devising, we’ll study new forms of a very old practice.