Join us for the sixth annual Writing Retreat at Shake Rag Alley, open to writers of all levels. Enrich your talent and prospects in one of three genres:
Memoir and Personal Narrative with Patricia Ann McNair, Retreat Artistic Director
Writing Fiction with Christine Maul Rice
Digging In: Research and Writing with Sheree L. Greer
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
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
Patricia Ann McNair’s short story collection, Responsible Adults, was named a Distinguished Favorite by the Independent Press Awards. The Temple of Air (stories) was named Chicago Writers Association’s Book of the Year, Southern Illinois University’s Devil’s Kitchen Readers Award, and Society of Midland Authors Finalist Award. Her collection of essays, And These Are the Good Times, was a Montaigne Medal Finalist for Most Thought-Provoking Book of the Year.…Read More
Patricia Ann McNair’s short story collection, Responsible Adults, was named a Distinguished Favorite by the Independent Press Awards. The Temple of Air (stories) was named Chicago Writers Association’s Book of the Year, Southern Illinois University’s Devil’s Kitchen Readers Award, and Society of Midland Authors Finalist Award. Her collection of essays, And These Are the Good Times, was a Montaigne Medal Finalist for Most Thought-Provoking Book of the Year. McNair’s fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Barrelhouse, American Fiction: Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, Hypertext Review, River Teeth, Fourth Genre, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, and other publications. She was named to Chicago’s NewCity Lit 50 list, and A Writer to Watch by Chicago’s Guild Literary Complex. She is on the editorial board of Solstice Lit Magazine, and the curatorial board of the Ragdale Foundation. McNair taught at Columbia College Chicago for more than three decades and was nominated for the U.S. Carnegie Professor of the Year. She lives in Tucson with her husband, visual artist Philip Hartigan.
Christine Maul Rice’s novel-in-stories Swarm Theory (University of Hell Press) was awarded an Independent Publisher Book Award, a National Indie Excellence Award, a Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year award, and was included in PANK’s Best Books of 2016 and Powell’s Books Midyear Roundup: The Best Books of 2016 So Far. In 2019, Christine was included in New City’s Lit 50: Who Really Books in Chicago 2019 and named One of 30 Writers to Watch by Chicago’s Guild Complex. …Read More
Christine Maul Rice’s novel-in-stories Swarm Theory (University of Hell Press) was awarded an Independent Publisher Book Award, a National Indie Excellence Award, a Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year award, and was included in PANK’s Best Books of 2016 and Powell’s Books Midyear Roundup: The Best Books of 2016 So Far. In 2019, Christine was included in New City’s Lit 50: Who Really Books in Chicago 2019 and named One of 30 Writers to Watch by Chicago’s Guild Complex. Most recently, Christine’s short stories and essays have been published in the anthologies 2020 The Year of the Asterisk (University of Hell Press), MAKE Literary Magazine, BELT’s Rust Belt Anthology, The Literary Review, and online at The Rumpus, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Big Smoke, The Millions, Chicago Tribune, Detroit’s Metro Times, among other publications. Christine is the founder and editor of Hypertext Magazine. Twitter: @ChrisMaulRiceÂ
A Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native, Sheree L. Greer is a text-based artist and educator living in Tampa, Florida. In 2014, she founded The Kitchen Table Literary Arts Center to showcase and support the work of Black women and women of color writers and is the author of two novels, Let the Lover Be and A Return to Arms.…Read More
A Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native, Sheree L. Greer is a text-based artist and educator living in Tampa, Florida. In 2014, she founded The Kitchen Table Literary Arts Center to showcase and support the work of Black women and women of color writers and is the author of two novels, Let the Lover Be and A Return to Arms. Her work has been published in First Bloom Anthology, LezTalk Anthology, VerySmartBrothas, Autostraddle, The Windy City Times, Bleed Literary Journal, and the Windy City Queer Anthology: Dispatches from the Third Coast. Sheree has received a Union League of Chicago Civic Arts Foundation award, earned her MFA at Columbia College Chicago, and is a VONA/VOICES alum, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice grantee, Yaddo fellow, and Ragdale Artist House Rubin Fellow. Her essay, “Bars” published in Fourth Genre Magazine, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and notably named in Best American Essays 2019, and her latest essay, “None of This Is Bullshit” was published at The Rumpus and featured in “Memoir Mondays.”
Select the genre you would like to focus on: (Details coming soon!). 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.
Join us for a night of lively literary readings by Writing Retreat faculty and local authors at Mineral Point’s Cafe 43. Enjoy a free beverage courtesy of the Wisconsin Writers Association, and consider sharing your own voice during the Open Mic. Free admission; open to the public.
PUBLISHING Panel: MAKING A WRITING LIFE: FROM COMMUNITY TO PUBLISHING