Writing Retreats

Writers love to get away...together!

Give yourself a reprieve from the day-to-day, carved out and crafted to feed the writing soul with inspiration, writerly communion, and time-slowed-down.

writing retreat locations

Rivendell Spiritual Center

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Blue Spring Creek

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Walnut Ridge Farm

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Not exactly workshop, not exactly lecture, Webinars are an opportunities for writers to explore elements of craft and the writing life. Conversations will be designed and facilitated by Porch instructors as well as experts in the publishing industry.

Rivendell Spring 2024 dates:

April 25 - 28

Join us this spring at Rivendell Spiritual Center —formerly Rivendell Writers’ Colony—for a weekend of writerly communion and "a room of one’s own." Overlooking a cove in Sewanee, Tennessee, Rivendell is a place of uncommon beauty, with deep literary roots.

(Not long enough? There's an optional add-on of a Thursday night stay!)

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The Rivendell experience:

Quiet time for reflection and writing, inspiration, a comfortable desk, spectacular views, camaraderie and communion, enriching workshops, opportunities to share, relaxation, catered meals, libations. Optional activities may include:

  • Craft workshop

  • Draft Chat: An opportunity to share work and receive feedback

  • Saturday evening participant reading

  • Group walk to Natural Bridge

  • Sunday morning craft conversation

The setting:

A stone’s throw from University of the South, Rivendell offers charming, writerly accommodations, breathtaking views, and a myriad of lovely perches for reading, writing, and musing. Imbued with the rich literary heritage and spirit of the Cumberland Plateau, it is a campus of pleasant surprises, inspiring writers to explore and to create.

Rivendell adjoins the historic Brinkwood property, once owned by William Alexander Percy, uncle to novelist Walker Percy. Brinkwood provided a foundation for Walker’s vivid imagination and keen observation sensibility, as well as access to the colorful array of authors and artists who visited his uncle’s mountain retreat. 

 “It is… in the middle of the woods, on top of a bastion of mountains crenelated with blue coves. It is so beautiful that people who have once been there always, one way or another, come back. For such as can detect apple green in an evening sky, it is Arcadia—not the one that never used to be, but the one that many people always live in; only this one can be shared.” –William Alexander Percy

Registration fees include lodging, catered meals and libations, and programming. Variable pricing dependent on room selection.

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  • Manor House (5 rooms available) $650

  • Manor House Double Occupancy—two queen-sized beds in a spacious room (1 available) $800 

  • Pond View Cabin or Brinkwood: These are private properties located on the Rivendell property, located a short five-minute walk from the Manor House. Each additional property has 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a comfortable living space, a full kitchen, and a peaceful screened-in porch. (4 rooms available) $450

  • Pond Carriage House: Single-occupancy apartment adjacent to Pond View Cabin (1 available) $300

  • Day Rate: Excludes accommodations. Includes all meals, programming, and access to the many common spaces (4 available) $250

  • Thursday night add-on (Meals not included): $125

Cancellation Policy: A nonrefundable deposit of $200 is included in the registration fee. Cancellation after October 25 will result in forfeiture of payment 

To learn more, please email Katie@porchtn.org

Blue Spring Creek Spring 2024 Dates:

April 25 - 30

Immerse yourself in the lush nature surrounding Blue Spring Creek for a 6-day writers retreat tucked away in Ashland City, TN, just 30 minutes outside of Nashville! This spring we are thrilled to partner with acclaimed writer Melissa Jean, offering 2-hour afternoon craft talks, guided mindfulness writing practices, and forest bathing walks designed to deepen your sensory experiences of the natural world and encourage writing about nature in inventive ways. Open to writers of all levels eager to enhance nature writing in their poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction, there will be many hours in the day for independent work, be it a novel, memoir, or collection. Join us this spring for a generative, transformative experience together! Apply here.

Spring dates: April 25-30
Application deadline: February 28

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Walnut Ridge Farm Date:

October 14

A writer’s most primary skill is the skill of paying attention. We pay close attention to people, to language, to our own feelings and the feelings and actions of others. Having full access to the information that comes to us through our five senses keeps us fully engaged in the creative flow.  In this workshop, held in a beautiful outdoor/indoor setting on Walnut Ridge Farm in Wilson County, we will tune our bodies to be receptive to our senses, focusing on translating the things our bodies know into language. Every breeze is an elegy, every scent a memory. We will touch, taste, hear. see and smell our way into new stories.

October 14, 2023

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