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Write with other writers!
Join us for the fifth annual Writing Retreat at Shake Rag Alley, open to writers of all levels. Enrich your talent and prospects in one of three genres:
• Memoir & Personal Essay with Patricia Ann McNair (Retreat Artistic Director)
• Crafting Fiction with Christine Rice
• Writing for Young People with Sarah Hammond
These in-depth workshops will challenge you across the three days and are led by award-winning published authors and experienced teachers of writing.
Interwoven around these main workshops will be optional and inspiring creative activities, including:
• Craft Talks and Panel Discussions
• Faculty and Local Author Reading
• Two Participant Open Mics
We look forward to welcoming you to a retreat jam-packed with opportunities to learn, share, network, and write.
Manuscript consultations are available with instructors on a first sign up, first served basis, at a very affordable price.
We are pleased to work in partnership with Hypertext Magazine & Studio, a social justice writing nonprofit organization.
Friday, May 21
10 – 10:30 am: Welcome & Faculty Introductions
10:45 – 11:45 am: Panel Discussion: Literary Citizens and Building Community, Sheree L. Greer, Sarah Hammond, Patricia McNair, Shawn Shifflet
Noon: Lunch
1:00 – 4:30 pm: Workshop Groups
4:30 – 6 pm: Meet & Greet
5:30 – 7 pm: Manuscript Consultations
Free Evening to Explore Mineral Point and/or Write
Saturday, May 22
9 am: Manuscript Consultations
10:00 – 11:00 am: Craft Talk: Writers Dreaming, Shawn Shiflett
11:15 am – 12:15 pm: Professional/Publishing Talk: Confessions of a Literary Magazine Editor, Christine Rice
12:30 – 1:30 pm: Lunch & Participant Open Mic
1:30 – 4:30 pm: Workshop Groups
4:45 – 5:45 pm: Craft Talk: Writing Your Opposite, Eric Charles May
7:30 pm: Faculty and Local Author Reading | open to the public
Sunday, May 23
9:30 am: Manuscript Consultations
10 – 11:00 am: Workshop: Magic in Your Pocket (Easy Handmade Books), Philip Hartigan
11:00 am – noon: Craft Talk: Trust Your Voice, Trust Your Reader: Revision as Craft, Sheree L. Greer
12:15 – 1:15 pm: Lunch & Participant Open Mic
1:30 – 4:30 pm: Workshop Groups conclude
4:30 – 5 pm: Closing Remarks & Toast
Select the genre you would like to focus on: Memoir & Personal Essay, Crafting Fiction, or Writing for Young People. Register for that workshop.
All workshops meet simultaneously. All retreat participants meet jointly in the Lind Pavilion for craft talks, readings, and lunch.
Add a manuscript evaluation if you would like to meet one-on-one with an instructor to receive feedback on work submitted prior to the retreat. The instructor you meet with does not need to be the one teaching your workshop.
Writing Retreat participants may sign up for a 25-minute one-on-one manuscript consultation with select faculty members. You may submit one piece no longer than 12 pages.
Saturday, May 22 | 12:30-1:30 pm
Sunday, May 23 | 12:15-1:15 pm
Registered workshop participants are invited to read from their own work. Please limit your selections to under 10 minutes.
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What does it mean to be a good literary citizen and how does one find, or build, a writing community?
Panel Discussion with Patricia McNair, Sheree L. Greer, Sarah Hammond, and Shawn Shiflett.
Some of our earliest storytelling attempts came from the sharing of our nighttime dreams. This craft talk will help writers relate the rich, various, and powerful world of dreams to the needs and delights of imaginative prose. Bring your dreams and your journals!
What do lit mag editors look for in the multitude of submissions they receive each month? What do they wish you knew before you sent your work? What drives them batty? What makes their literary hearts leap? Christine Maul Rice, publisher of Hypertext Magazine, will fill us in. What do you want to ask?
The writer and educator John Schultz once wrote: “Many of the great characters of literature have been opposites of the author…” Examples would be Captain Ahab of Moby Dick and Herman Melville, the freed slave Sethe of Beloved and Toni Morrison, the murderous Raskolnikov of Crime and Punishment and Fyodor Dostoevsky. In creative nonfiction as well, some of the most engaging depictions are of people who are opposites of the author: Hector, the boyfriend of Mary Karr’s mother in Liar’s Club, Mademoiselle, the governess of Vladimir Nabokov in Speak Memory. This presentation will look at some creative approaches to developing and writing the opposite personae, be it fiction or nonfiction.
It’s been said that a book is its own uniquely portable magic. Visual artist and writer Philip Hartigan will lead us in a hands-on bookmaking workshop designed to help us create our own vessels for portable magic to fill with our words and slip into our pockets.
Stephen King said, “Kill your darlings,” but what if we took murder off the table and focused on saving and nurturing creative voice? Building and sustaining a relationship with our readers? Let’s explore revision as craft and discuss approaches that support the dynamic and rigorous work of sculpting our work from first draft to final form.
Gather in the spacious Shake Rag Alley Lind Pavilion, at 411 Commerce Street, in Mineral Point for a reading by Writing Retreat faculty, Galena author Kathy Gereau, and Mineral Point authors Justin O’Brien and Matt Renwick.
Coach House
18 Shake Rag Street
Art Café
Ellery House
restrooms
4 of 33restrooms
5 of 33restrooms
6 of 33Open Air Parking
7 of 33Lind Pavilion Parking
8 of 33Roadside Parking
allowed on Commerce Street
Smejas’ Studio parking
10 of 33Smejas’ Studio
30 Doty Street
Curbside Parking
as indicated
Accessible Parking
with curb cut
Accessible Parking
with curb cut
Alley Stage
15 of 33Cabinet Shop
French Cabin
1830 Log Cabin
Potter’s House
Blacksmith Barn
Federal Spring
21 of 33Monarch Garden
22 of 33Lind Pavilion
411 Commerce Street
two blocks to
High Street & Commerce Street
Restaurants, Shops & Galleries
To Grocery Store
Point Foods
622 Dodge Street
Street Parking with Additional Parking behind Smejas’ Studio
26 of 33The Green
open air park
Stair Steps
between
Cabinet Shop & Lind Pavilion
Stair Steps
to Alley Stage
Stone Bridge
over
Federal Spring
Weaving & Fiber Arts Studio
Cannery Row Arts Incubator
121 Water St.
Footbridge
33 of 33ADA accessible buildings: Lind Pavilion, Coach House, Smejas’ Studio
18 Shake Rag St.
Mineral Point, WI 53565
(608) 987-3292