WOW offers transformative writing retreats, upcoming in Tuscany, Maine, Yellowstone, Spain, and more
08/11/2024
Get in on our “Write Friday” deal: $400 off till Thanksgiving when you book two people for a double room at our Montana retreat, taking place Jan 12-18, 2025. Surprise a friend with the gift of writing their heart out in this most beautiful setting. You know, It’s not moving to Canada, but it’s up north! It’s oh so quiet! And won’t January be a great month to get away from it all and exercise your freedom to write? This generative retreat is being led by Ammi Midstokke and Dawn Brockett, who will help mine your creativity, coaxing your best words from deep inside you out onto the page, where they're aching to be. And of course there will be cozy evenings by the fire, in the hot tub, and gazing at the stars with a steamy drink in hand. Join us! You deserve it. Especially now. https://wideopenwriting.com/montana-ranch-2025
05/11/2024
It’s US election day. Stuff could get weird. So, focus on the positives, like joining us for a wintering-in writing retreat Jan 12-18, 2025. We’re voting yes to life by fixin' to gather by the fireplace to write in community and break bread together. No matter the outcome from today (or even if this thing drags into days), we plan to breathe in the satisfying air of one of the most beautiful and quiet places to retreat and find our best words and artistry. So join us, and make it even better by surprising a writing buddy with the holiday gift of retreating into book-writing bliss with them in the “cowboy poetry country” of Montana. https://wideopenwriting.com/montana-ranch-2025
29/10/2024
Write well and eat well in Montana, where our retreat will focus on nourishing your prose as well as your body and mind. We’ll gather Jan. 12-18, 2025, kicking off the new year with deep dedication to finding our voices and unearthing our deepest, most delectable words, all that’s on the tip of our tongues, ready to be freed to roam the wide open possibilities on the page. This is a place of deep-winter, pin-drop quiet and cozy comfort. Of hot tubs and fireplaces and other great writers like yourself. Chef Elizabeth Gibb will prepare meals like the ones you see here. Join us! https://wideopenwriting.com/montana-ranch-2025
18/10/2024
What about that book you've been planning to write your whole adult life? You know, THAT one. The one that feels dangerous, like a literary third rail. The one your family members do not want you to write ... for their reasons, not yours! Join us under the big sky of beautiful Montana January 12-18, 2025, with intrepid writing guides Ammi Midstokke and Dawn Brockett, to free the daring story collecting dust in your bones. The retreat is filling up! We have just 2 single rooms and 3 shared rooms left. https://wideopenwriting.com/montana-ranch-2025
10/09/2024
Join us to write your heart out in the great wide-open country of Montana: Jan 12-18, 2025. Our wintering-in retreat will feed your creative impulses, helping you tap into the words huddled behind a door inside you, waiting to be let out onto the page. We will also nourish your body with beautiful feasts from chef Elizabeth Gibb. Come to the table! https://wideopenwriting.com/montana-ranch-2025
03/09/2024
Nature, the world’s first artist, is a source of endless inspiration for writers, mirroring our deepest impulses for storytelling—in whatever form those stories take. Discover, dig deeper, and develop your craft in beautiful Montana: Jan 12-18, 2025. You’ll breathe in the gorgeous scenery and exhale the intrinsic impulse to put words on the page, finding your path into the woods of what you have to say. https://wideopenwriting.com/montana-ranch-2025
30/08/2024
We’ve just learned that the whole universe is humming around us. Now what?
23/08/2024
23/08/2024
Grab a seat at the table to nourish your creativity and dine on delicious, inspiring meals lovingly prepared by Chef Elizabeth Gibb. Jan. 12-18, 2025. https://wideopenwriting.com/montana-ranch-2025
20/08/2024
Join us Jan. 12-18, 2025, for a wintering-in writing retreat on sprawling Turnbuckle Ranch in Montana. Here, we’ll connect through the collective quiet by the crackling fireplace, heads down writing, or gazing through windows framing snow-covered expenses holding stories of their own. Lodged in coziness amid the quiet wide open is the perfect scenario for nourishing one another’s creativity, sharing writing, feeding our bodies with delicious meals, and rewarding our efforts with hot-tub soaks under the stars.
17/08/2024
Whitehead Island, “The Isle of Write,” exceeds our expectations in every way!
16/08/2024
Join us for a writing retreat Jan. 12-18, 2025, in Montana, where we will flourish in a reprieve from the larger world, breathing deeply the restorative air of wide open spaces and mining the depths of ourselves. The bears will be hibernating, and we will be un-hiding the knowing wisdom that lies dormant within us all. We’ll also have fun. We promise.
15/08/2024
15/08/2024
Scenes from Whitehead Island. Wish you were here writing with us!
14/08/2024
Find your words in Montana. Join us for a wintering-in writing retreat Jan 12-18, 2025, as we gather by the fireplace to write in community and break bread together, nourishing our bodies with amazing cuisine and satisfying our souls with creativity. Your appetite, your desire, the whisperings of your deepest creative needs—all will be fed in the “cowboy poetry country” of Montana. https://wideopenwriting.com/montana-ranch-2025
We’re gathering our stories and heading for Maine Lighthouse. Can hardly wait to see who what where emerges from the sea and rocks and hearts of our writers.
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What if you increase the volume of your own desires by dialing down the outside world and taking your lovely self to a place that is often called one of the most beautiful on Earth? Join us Jan. 12-18, 2025, for a wintering-in writing retreat on sprawling Turnbuckle Ranch in Montana. We will connect through the collective quiet by the crackling fireplace, heads down writing or gazing through windows framing the snowy landscape. We’re also going to dine on great food! https://wideopenwriting.com/montana-ranch-2025 #writerslife #writingcommunity #womenwriters
Grab a seat at the table to nourish your creativity and dine on delicious, inspiring meals lovingly prepared by Chef Elizabeth Gibb. Jan. 12-18, 2025. https://wideopenwriting.com/montana-ranch-2025 #writerslife #writingcommunity #womenwriters
Tune in May 23rd: Nikki Kallio will offer specially designed prompts to give your writing a boost—rocket boost your work in any genre (including memoir and all types of fiction).
https://wideopenwriting.com/wow-writing-classes
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A Brief History of Wide Open Writing
Wide Open Writing was born in 2014 on a bus in Italy, somewhere between the hills of San Gimignano and Florence. But in order to take you to that part, we need to back up a few years.
In July 2009, way out west in a lush, green corner of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula a friendship was blossoming. Regina and Dulcie’s friendship. It was the first night of Goddard College’s creative writing residency. One of those awkward meet and greets. The story, as best they can recall, goes like this: Regina loved Dulcie’s sense of humor and Dulcie loved Regina’s laugh and that was the start of that. Despite Regina living in Italy and Dulcie living in Maine, they kept in touch when they could, eventually by way of the literary journal, Minerva Rising which Dulcie helped co-found alongside Kim Brown.
One day on the phone they chatted and longed about going away somewhere beautiful to write. Dulcie knew of a place in Maine and Regina knew of a farmhouse in Tuscany. They weighed their options, looked at a calendar and decided on September in Tuscany. They called it, “Autumn in Tuscany, a Retreat for the Senses.” They told Nancy about their idea and she said yes, she’d bring yoga. They then told their friends on Facebook what they were doing, asked if anyone wanted to come along and nine more people said yes.
The week was more than they could have envisioned. Camaraderie with fellow writers, interesting and inspiring conversations;. laughter and dancing and possibly even some skinny-dipping. And of course, there was writing. On the bus ride back to Florence someone piped up with the suggestion that they run retreats as a business. They took the suggestion to heart and got to work.
Wide Open Writing has come about as an answer to our own writerly needs. A retreat is what we made for ourselves when we wanted and needed to get away and write. It’s been our experience that most of the people who come on our retreats are very much like us, trying to find creative ways to nurture and grow their writing life alongside their ‘regular life’ which we all know is no easy feat. Especially when there’s a job, a family, and laundry to consider. Often, in order to connect to our creative side and get the juices flowing, we just need to get away. We believe that seeking the quiet, the time, the space away from the grind in order to listen to the writer inside us is not a luxury but a necessity.
We’re in our fifth year of running retreats and we’re growing, both in terms of retreats offered and in members of our tribe. We’ve held retreats in the US, Mexico, Italy and this fall, we’ve added a new destination: Marrakech. We are just about to break into triple figures for alumni and Pantelleria is our eighth retreat. We have not been able to to this alone. We credit the help, time, thought, energy and love we’ve had along the way from so many talented writers and healers; people whose desire to both create and connect has drawn them to this growing energy center. Nikki Kallio, JoAnn McAllister and Troi Boulanger have been there from the get-go. More recently we’ve gained from the expertise of Pam Dumlao and Frances Weiner. We believe that the people are what create the sparks that allow for the connecting and the magic to happen on our retreats. We thank you for being a part of it.
