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Write with other writers!
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:
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:
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. McNair’s fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Barrelhouse, American Fiction: Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, Hypertext Review, River Teeth, Fourth Genre, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, and other publications.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.
Workshops
Memoir & Personal Essay – Writing Retreat
Manuscript Consultations – Writing Retreat
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: @ChrisMaulRice
Workshops
Short Story – Writing Retreat
Manuscript Consultations – Writing Retreat
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.”
Author Website
Workshops
Manuscript Consultation – Writing Retreat
Panel Discussion & Craft Talk – Writing Retreat
Friday, May 20
10-10:30 am: Welcome & Faculty Introductions
10:45-11:45 am: Craft Talk: Feeding the Habit: Writers’ Journals, Patricia McNair
Noon: Lunch
1:30-4:30 pm: Workshop Groups
4:30-6 pm: Meet & Greet
5:30-7 pm: Manuscript Consultations | Registration required ($40)
Free Evening to Explore Mineral Point and/or Write
Saturday, May 21
9-10 am: Morning Pages, Patricia Ann McNair
10:15-11:15 am: Craft Talk: Octavia Taught Me: Creative Practice and Accountability, Sheree L. Greer | open to the public ($15)
11:30am-12:30 pm: Lunch & Participant Open Mic
12:45-3:45 pm: Day Two Workshops
4 pm: Mineral Point Gallery Crawl (optional)
7:30 pm: Faculty Reading + Open Mic at Cafe 43, 43 High St. | open to the public (free)
Sunday, May 22
9-10 am: Morning Pages, Patricia Ann McNair
10:15-11:15 am: Craft Talk: Making Sense of it All: Literary Response to Historic (& Personal) Events, Christine Maul Rice | open to the public ($15)
11:30am-12:30 pm: Lunch & Participant Open Mic
12:45-3:45 pm: Final Workshops
4-5 pm: Publishing Panel: Making a Writing Life: From Community to Publishing
5:15-5:30 pm: Closing Remarks & Toast
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.
Open Mics will be held during lunch Saturday and Sunday on a sign-up basis.
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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
