Take time out to explore, develop and craft your own creative writing practice on retreat with ex-publisher and published writer, Harriet Griffey.
Just turn up. Be free and easy in your writing. Don’t bring your reason to it too much. Just have a go and see what comes out. Anna Burns, 2018 Booker Prize winner
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Writers’ retreat, June 10th – 17th 2023
At Las Chimeneas (click on link to book) in the Alpujarra mountains of Granada, Southern Spain.
“Harriet Griffey offers beginners and experienced writers creative space to write, one-to-one feedback, and group opportunities to share and discuss their process.” – The Guardian
Take time out to explore, develop and craft your own writing practice on retreat at this beautiful and peaceful Spanish location, epitomised by Bloomsbury writer Gerald Brenan in his 1957 literary memoir South from Granada.
Whether you are completely new to writing or trying to develop or complete a piece of work, this retreat offers a creative space for a concentrated daily writing practice, with one-to-one feedback, and group opportunities to share and discuss writing development. Whether you want to focus on memoir, fiction or non-fiction writing, poetry or prose, this retreat provides an opportunity to create the time and space to focus on your own writing.
Prior to the retreat, each participant will be invited to submit a piece of writing along with an outline of their individual aims for the week, in order to develop, extend or problem solve some aspect of their writing practice.
The provision of a supported environment at Las Chimeneas allows the freedom to write, whether or not you want to pursue publication, and can provide either a first step into committed writing or a final push to completion.
The location offers a tranquil space in beautiful dwellings, with home-baked bread and delicious meals produced from the abundant local produce. There is a small pool in a relaxing courtyard, free Wifi connection in most areas of the accommodation, good connections via Almeria and Malaga airports, plus all the benefit of experienced hosts David and Emma who have lived in the area for over 20 years.
If there is a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it. Toni Morrison
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About Harriet Griffey
Harriet Griffey leads and facilitates Writers’ Retreats. She is a London-based ex-publisher, published author and journalist, with an MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature.
She is a past commissioning editor at George Allen & Unwin, past editorial director at Macdonald Publishers, a member of The Royal Society of Literature and a tutor with the Creative Writing Consultancy.
Author of over 20 books, she has been published by Penguin, Bloomsbury, Pan Macmillan and Hardie Grant publishers.
She is also editorial consultant to One Hand Clapping magazine, columnist at In The Moment magazine and cultural editor at The Ecologist.
As a print journalist, she has written for all the UK national newspapers and was a past book reviewer for the FT newspaper. As a broadcast journalist, she has worked for both BBC and LBC radio.
Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist. Jane Smiley
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About Writers’ Retreats
Explore
The provision of a supported environment in peaceful and beautiful locations allows writers the freedom to explore creatively the craft, structure and narrative of their writing and develop their individual voice.
Develop
Whether or not writers want to pursue publication, this retreat can provide either the first step into a committed writing practice or a final push to completion. At all times the focus is on individual development, led by an experienced, published writer and facilitator.
Craft
The retreat offers a creative space for a concentrated daily writing practice, suggested writing tasks and one-to-one consultations, plus group opportunities to share and discuss writing development.
Whether the focus is on memoir, fiction or non-fiction writing, poetry or prose, this retreat provides an opportunity to create the time and space to concentrate on writing. Prior to the retreat, each participant will be invited to submit a piece of writing, along with an outline of individual aims for the week.
At heart, write always for yourself, not for family and friends, for admired teachers, for reviewers or publishers; but make sure you write from your real self, not that one besotted by vainglorious dreams of a future self. One day you will realise that the true rewards of writing lie inalienably in the writing self. John Fowles
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Write Every Day
Daily practice to kickstart your creative writing
Writing is a wonderful way to explore personal creativity, and whatever writing you want to do a daily practice will enhance your skill and confidence. Fiction or non-fiction, poetry or prose, remove yourself from your comfort zone and explore a unique path to finding your own individual voice with the help of this book.
Write Every Day encourages beginners and established writers alike to stretch their metaphorical wings through a daily writing practice, exploring different aspects, styles and genres through creative prompts and exercises. Twelve explicit sections range across voice, narrative, plot, structure, point of view, characterisation, dialogue, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, prose and memoir to help writers focus and develop their own writing.
And what is this writing, anyway, as a human activity or as a vocation, or as a profession, or as a hack job, or perhaps even as an art, and why do so many people feel compelled to do it? Margaret Atwood.
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Contact
We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Joan Didion