2. Academics
3. Graduate
4. Creative Writing
5. Writers' Retreat

Summer Writers' Retreat and Publishing Seminar

Rosemont College is a peaceful sanctuary located just minutes by train from Center City, Philadelphia. The Creative Writing Retreat offers either a weekend, a weeklong, or combination session featuring workshops run by award-winning writers and student-focused teachers. The program includes time to write, craft lectures, and panels. Workshops will be limited to no more than ten participants, ensuring that each author will have plenty of critique time. Nightly faculty readings and receptions, along with an open mic, will offer plenty of networking opportunities, but the emphasis will be on immersing oneself in the writing life and one’s own work.

The eight-day Publishing Seminar will be focused on one topic of particular relevance to the publishing industry. The emphasis here is on discussion, case studies, and research, with access to all the panels, networking, and readings.

Tuition

Matriculated students taking the program for credit: $2,235 + $65 materials fee (or the current 3-credit rate) – please contact Carla Spataro, MFA & Publishing program director if you plan to take the retreat for credit.

Non-credit students

• Publishing Seminar: $1200
• Weekend: $500
• Weeklong: $800
• Both Creative Writing Sessions: $1200
• 15% Discount for Alumni

Housing (for all events)

Housing is available on campus in Connelly Hall, which has suite-style accommodations. Each attendee will have a private room unless you’d like to share a room with another attendee. (Email Carla Spataro for special pricing.) Attendees will need to bring their own sheets and towels. All meals are provided during the weekend portion of the retreat. During the week, a welcome and farewell dinner will be provided along with breakfast and lunch each day. Snacks and beverages are provided in the evening during readings and panels. Coffee is available 24/7.

• Weekend: $100
• Weeklong: $300
• Both: $400

New: Publishing Seminar

Publishing for a New Society: Understanding Business Growth
Through a DE&I Lens

June 10-17, 2022

REGISTER: PUBLISHING SEMINAR

Meeting at the two-anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, the protests for racial justice, and the viral #publishingpaidme, this class will look back at the racial reckoning of the last two years to better understand the events that forced our country to address its conscious and unconscious biases. We will examine what companies have done since then to eliminate barriers to success for people of color, and we will explore how you can take a systematic approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion that will help the publishing industry continue to evolve and expand.

Instructor: Susette Brooks

Susette Brooks is an award-winning writer, educator, and communications strategist. She is a Director of DEI Strategy at Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House. She also leads a team of soldier-journalists in the New Jersey Army National Guard, and she is a former board member at Philadelphia Stories. Learn more at www.susettebrooks.com.

Writers' Retreat

reserve your spot

3-Day Weekend Creative Writing Workshops
June 10-12, 2022

Flash Fiction
The Power of Compression

If you write poetry or fiction, or even if you’re not sure what you want to write, this class is for you. If you’re looking to restart writing habits, find new ones, or dip your toe in the writing world, try flash fiction. In this workshop, we will read, write, and discuss short-short fiction. We’ll look at what’s been published and what is being published. We’ll create a supportive environment to give you feedback on your writing. And, of course, we’ll write.

Advanced Submissions Requested (1000 words or less) by June 1, 2022.

Instructor: Trish Rodriquez

Trish Rodriguez is a writer and editor who is currently the Fiction Editor of Philadelphia Stories. She is also a senior prose editor at Typehouse. Her work has been published in Awakenings and Animal: A Beast of a Literary Magazine. She reads and writes in Media, PA.

Multi-Genre
The Creative Notebook: How to Get Unstuck, Break Through Blocks, and Take Your Writing to the Next Level (A Multi-Genre Workshop)

The writer and artist Melissa Sweet advises writers: “Go out and play!” How do we reclaim that sense of play and fun in our work? How do we push past dull spots in our writing to access new ideas and make our work feel alive? This class will show how a fresh, blank notebook can serve as a life-changing creative space: a place that can generate ideas for fiction, memoir, essays, poetry, and articles; a place where you can resuscitate old projects that are languishing; and a place where you can chart your writing career. Weather permitting, the class will take place partly outdoors; we’ll discuss how writing in nature can inspire ideas and help us go more deeply into our work. The class will also include advice on submitting our work for publication, and will include a virtual visit from a literary magazine editor to talk about the publishing process.

No Advanced Submissions Requested.

Instructor: Margo Rabb

Margo Rabb’s essays, journalism, book reviews, and short stories have been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Salon, The Rumpus, Zoetrope: All-Story, Best New American Voices, New Stories from the South, One Story, Poets & Writers, and Marie Claire, and have been broadcast on NPR. She is the author of the novels Lucy Clark Will Not Apologize, Kissing in America, and Cures for Heartbreak, all published by HarperCollins; all have been named to multiple best-of-the-year lists. She received the grand prize in the Zoetrope short story contest, first prize in The Atlantic fiction contest, first prize in the American Fiction contest, and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award. Margo grew up in Queens, New York, and now lives in the Philadelphia area with her family and a menagerie of animals. Visit her online at www.margorabb.com.

Fiction
Tempting Readers to Turn Pages: Creating Compelling Characters in MG & YA Fiction 

When writing for children and teens, we strive to create memorable characters in compelling situations that will encourage our readers to keep turning pages. During our time together, we will explore ways to create unforgettable characters in interesting situations. We’ll consider characters from existing MG & YA fiction, and we will craft new scenes and revise existing scenes in our own fiction.

Advanced Submissions Requested: Minimum 2500 words (10 double-spaced pages). Maximum 5000 words (20 double-spaced pages) by May 27, 2022.

Instructor: Laura Sibson

After a career in undergraduate counseling, Laura Sibson pursued an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Laura currently teaches creative writing at Arcadia University and has taught at the Highlights Foundation. When she’s not writing or teaching writing, you can find her exploring her neighborhood streets or hiking with her dog in Fairmount Park; she lives in Chestnut Hill with her family. She is the author of two young adult novels from Viking, The Art of Breaking Things and Edie In Between.

Poetry
Honing Poetic Voice

In this workshop, we will explore the idea of poetic voices—plural, because it won't just be yours. Not only will we analyze and develop the voice of the primary speaker of the poem, but also voices through personae, historical voices, cultural voices, and even voices through the lens of pop culture. We'll read and discuss examples, workshop the poems you submitted ahead of time, and then put the techniques we study into practice by writing new poems. We will also be analyzing techniques gleaned from fiction and plays to incorporate dialogue into poems.

Advanced Submissions Requested (3 poems) by June 1, 2022.

Instructor: Chad Frame

Chad Frame is the author of Little Black Book (Finishing Line Press, 2022). His work appears in Rattle, Pedestal, Barrelhouse, Rust+Moth, and elsewhere, including on iTunes from the Library of Congress. He is the Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program and a Poet Laureate Emeritus of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, the Poetry Editor of Ovunque Siamo: New Italian-American Writing, a founding member of the No River Twice poetry and improvisation performance troupe, a Poet in Residence at the Eclipse Center for Creative Community, and the Founder and Director of the Caesura Poetry Festival and Retreat. 

6-Day Weeklong Retreat
June 12-17, 2022

Fiction
Fiction Intensive

Do you have a chapter from a novel-in-progress in need of feedback? A draft of a short story striving to get to the next level? This workshop-style course will focus on thoughtful, detailed discussion of participants’ fiction. Workshops will be supplemented by exercises and readings designed to offer strategies for creating tension, complicating characters, writing realistic dialogue, and more. Please submit one story or chapter to the Conference by June 1. Instructor will provide detailed written critiques.

Advanced Submissions Requested (5000 words or less) by June 1, 2022.

Instructor: Elise Juska

Elise Juska is the author of five novels, including If We Had Known and The Blessings, which was selected for Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers series, Entertainment Weekly's "Must List," and the Philadelphia Inquirer's Best Books of 2014. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Ploughshares, The Gettysburg Review, The Missouri Review, The Hudson Review, Post Road, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Alice Hoffman Prize from Ploughshares, and her short stories have been longlisted by The Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies. She is an Associate Professor at the University of the Arts, where she received the 2014 Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.

CNF & Poetry
Taking it Public: Expanding the Forum for Memoir Essays and Poems of Conscience in Times of Crisis

This multi-genre workshop will examine craft issues related to writing through and about crisis including intersectionality, performativity, and historical detail. This is a one-week generative workshop for poets and creative nonfiction writers based on prompts to bring new perspective to your writing. No matter how stalled or stagnant your creative life may feel, these strategies are meant to inspire, revive, and energize.

No Advanced Submissions Requested.

Instructor: Artress Bethany White

Artress Bethany White is a poet, essayist, and literary critic. She is the recipient of the Trio Award for her poetry collection My Afmerica (Trio House Press, 2019) and author of Survivor’s Guilt: Essays on Race and American Identity (New Rivers Press, 2020). Her prose and poetry have appeared in such journals as Harvard Review, POETRY, Solstice, Ecotone, Birmingham Poetry Review, Tupelo Quarterly, The Hopkins Review, Green Mountains Review, and the forthcoming anthology Why I Wrote This Poem: 62 Poets on Creating Their Works (McFarland, 2022). She is associate professor of English at East Stroudsburg University, teaches poetry and nonfiction workshops for the Rosemont College Summer Writer’s Retreat in Pennsylvania, and is nonfiction editor for Boston-based Pangyrus literary magazine. Check out her website at artressbethanywhite.com.

Schedules