What's a Writers Retreat?

Last week I went to my first ever writers retreat! If you’re not familiar with this type of event, stick around, and I’ll tell you all about it. This particular retreat was hosted by author Gabrielle Meyer in a historic mansion in her hometown of Little Falls, Minnesota.

But before we reached Little Falls, the Bethany House authors stopped in Minneapolis to visit the Bethany House Publishers office. We spent a good chunk of a day there, dividing our time between meetings with our editors, the marketing and publicity team, and of course shared breakfast and lunch.

Once our time at the BHP office concluded, most of us headed north to check in for the writers retreat!

A writers retreat can serve different purposes for different writers, but the general idea is that it’s time away from our routine responsibilities to focus on writing. Or brainstorming with other authors. And also just visiting to various degrees, because writing is such a solitary job that even the introverts among us love connecting with our fellow writers.

The mansion we stayed in is called Linden Hill, and it sleeps 26 individuals. This was the room I stayed in. Isn’t it so cute?

Most rooms sleep two, but I was doubly blessed to have not one but two amazing roommates! Fellow authors Amy Lynn Green (also the senior fiction publicist for Bethany House) and Karen Witemeyer!

All the meals were provided on site where about twenty of us gathered around two large tables in adjoining dining rooms. It’s amazing how much more time there is in the day when I don’t have to cook or clean up after meals. (Can I get an amen?) Plus there were snacks, and a never ending supply of tea and coffee. Bliss!

Between meals, we had a choice whether to brainstorm in a group, chat, find a corner to work in, or work downstairs in the conference room. This is the window seat Amy Lynn Green found to hide away in with her laptop. So charming!

In the morning, I joined the brainstorm group with Lorna Seilstad, Julie Fisk, Lauraine Snelling, Kimberley Woodhouse, and Gabrielle Meyer. We each had a turn posing a specific question or plot point we wanted feedback for. It was a fruitful time, and great fun to throw out ideas for other people’s stories.

Jenny Snow also came to do a few interviews for her YouTube channel, The Book Club Life. Here she is with the brilliant Michelle Griep. I encourage you to check out Jenny's YouTube channel, it's packed with author interviews and reviews! Find her first interview with me here, and her review of Veiled in Smoke here.

After lunch, I headed down to the conference room to write. That's me in the foreground on the right, looking very thoughtful, and surrounded by greatness. I spy Julie Klassen and Lindsay Harrel in the photo. I was a little distracted, wondering what stories they were penning in my very presence. Want to know what I was working on? An email.

That’s right, I went to a writers retreat and wrote an email. Ha! But I wanted to share with my editors some ideas that had come from the morning brainstorming session. So I consider the day a win, because coming up with ideas takes me longer than you’d think. (I usually have to slog through a number of bad ideas before coming up with something that actually works.)

The evening offered group discussion and games that people could opt in or out of. So ended the writers retreat, because the next day was spent at the Mississippi River Readers Retreat—so named because Little Falls is right at the headwaters of the river.

What’s a readers retreat, you ask? Hop on over to the next blog post and I’ll tell you.

But before you go—If you're writer, have you been to a writers retreat before? What was the experience like for you?

If you're a reader, tell me in which setting you'd love to curl up and read a book if you had to choose from the photos in this post: the window seat pictured by Amy Lynn Green, the music room where we had our brainstorming session, the cozy bedroom, or the gazebo outside? 

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