The Home Writer's Retreat will be returning soon, stay tuned for more info!
2024 UPDATE: The Home Writer's Retreat was a pandemic-era outreach program designed to keep writers connected and writing at a time of great uncertainty and change. While we haven't recently checked in, every writer who participated in 2020's Home Writer's Retreat was part of something special.
The Home Writer's Retreat will soon be returning, in a slightly different format, but with all the writing tips, ideas and support you loved the first time around. Check back frequently for updates as they become available.
If you're curious what the HWR looked like during the pandemic, check out our very first dispatch below. Please note that this post is from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and could potentially be triggering to some visitors.
Hello everyone, thanks so much for joining me on The Home Writer’s Retreat!
The last few weeks have been surprising, to say the least, and the interruptions to our daily lives thanks to the global pandemic can’t be understated. Many of us are, for the time being, home-bound or otherwise practicing social distancing. Thank you to everyone who’s abiding by the new (albeit not-so-fun) directives and precautions from our public health officials. It will take all of us to help keep everyone healthy and safe.
There’ve been a great many cancellations and closures of events, schools, readings, classes, libraries, book clubs and more. This is disappointing, and feels like it takes away our ability to write, work, connect and create. I understand, and I’m right there with you—that’s where the Retreat comes in. I hope that through our time together in these short dispatches, you’ll be able to refocus on yourself, your family, your community and your art, in whatever form that takes for you.
Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, let’s focus on what we can currently do, rather than on what we cannot. I encourage you to take the time you might have spent commuting, or taking a class, or working out at the gym, or waiting in line at a coffee shop, or streaming that next episode to try out some of the prompts I’ll share. Some suggestions will spark for you, while others might not. That’s okay!
If you enjoy what we’re doing in The Home Writer’s Retreat, please share it with others! The best way to have new folks subscribe is through my website.
As I often say to my students, writing (all art, really) is a lonely vocation, so find all the community you can. That is what we’re trying to build here.
If you’d like to get in touch with me directly, feel free to contact me. If you decide the retreat isn’t for you, just let me know and I’ll remove you from our list. You can expect a Retreat dispatch from me most afternoons.
Today we’ll start off easy, with a fun set of first line prompts that anyone can try, whether you’re a seasoned writer, or if you haven’t flexed your writing muscles in a long while.
WRITING PROMPTS: Choose one of the following lines, and continue the story.
You might compose a fictional story, a poem, a non-fiction essay, a journal entry—follow the prompt wherever it takes you. Feel free to change pronouns, tenses, etc. Have fun!
A)They assured me they’d taken care of the horse.
B)There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, but…
C)This is how she got lost.
D)The sun rose, but he didn’t rise with it.
Thanks so much for joining us--spread the word and words to anyone who might benefit.
Until next time, stay healthy and creating.
All good things,
Alissa
The Home Writer's Retreat will soon be returning, in a slightly different format, but with all the writing tips, ideas and support you loved the first time around. Check back frequently for updates as they become available.
If you're curious what the HWR looked like during the pandemic, check out our very first dispatch below. Please note that this post is from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and could potentially be triggering to some visitors.
Hello everyone, thanks so much for joining me on The Home Writer’s Retreat!
The last few weeks have been surprising, to say the least, and the interruptions to our daily lives thanks to the global pandemic can’t be understated. Many of us are, for the time being, home-bound or otherwise practicing social distancing. Thank you to everyone who’s abiding by the new (albeit not-so-fun) directives and precautions from our public health officials. It will take all of us to help keep everyone healthy and safe.
There’ve been a great many cancellations and closures of events, schools, readings, classes, libraries, book clubs and more. This is disappointing, and feels like it takes away our ability to write, work, connect and create. I understand, and I’m right there with you—that’s where the Retreat comes in. I hope that through our time together in these short dispatches, you’ll be able to refocus on yourself, your family, your community and your art, in whatever form that takes for you.
Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, let’s focus on what we can currently do, rather than on what we cannot. I encourage you to take the time you might have spent commuting, or taking a class, or working out at the gym, or waiting in line at a coffee shop, or streaming that next episode to try out some of the prompts I’ll share. Some suggestions will spark for you, while others might not. That’s okay!
If you enjoy what we’re doing in The Home Writer’s Retreat, please share it with others! The best way to have new folks subscribe is through my website.
As I often say to my students, writing (all art, really) is a lonely vocation, so find all the community you can. That is what we’re trying to build here.
If you’d like to get in touch with me directly, feel free to contact me. If you decide the retreat isn’t for you, just let me know and I’ll remove you from our list. You can expect a Retreat dispatch from me most afternoons.
Today we’ll start off easy, with a fun set of first line prompts that anyone can try, whether you’re a seasoned writer, or if you haven’t flexed your writing muscles in a long while.
WRITING PROMPTS: Choose one of the following lines, and continue the story.
You might compose a fictional story, a poem, a non-fiction essay, a journal entry—follow the prompt wherever it takes you. Feel free to change pronouns, tenses, etc. Have fun!
A)They assured me they’d taken care of the horse.
B)There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, but…
C)This is how she got lost.
D)The sun rose, but he didn’t rise with it.
Thanks so much for joining us--spread the word and words to anyone who might benefit.
Until next time, stay healthy and creating.
All good things,
Alissa