Since 2014
Past: May 11-17, 2014; May 3-9, 2015; May 8-14, 2016; May 14-20, 2017; May 20-26, 2018; May 19-25, 2019; May 23-29, 2021; May 22-28, 2022
Upcoming: May 15-21, 2023; May 21-27, 2023
Faculty: Jordan Hartt
Location: Tahiti Village; Las Vegas, Nevada

 

The Retreat

Very short fictions are nearly always experimental, exquisitely calibrated, reminiscent of Frost’s definition of a poem—a structure of words that consumes itself as it unfolds, like ice melting on a stove. ~Joyce Carol Oates

Each May, we hold two sessions of the Desert Writers’ Retreat: a blend of generative writing time, workshop time, and private retreat time.

Whether you’re writing fiction, poetry, nonfiction, cross-genre, or un-genre work, short work is one of the most technically involved forms in our literature. To that end, we spend a week studying and writing the form.

Our goal is to complete one new written work of 1,000 words or fewer. And, each participant gets an hour-long workshop on their newly drafted piece.

[W]here the poem and story meet. Maybe brevity—on sight—alerts a reader’s expectancy […] But the form costs—it sacrifices most of itself. Experience borders perilously on nothing. ~H.E. Francis

You’ll leave with one new written and workshopped piece ready for advanced revision or submission, with new community and memories, and with new inspiration in the writing life.

A really good short-short, whatever else it may be, is a story we can’t help reading fast, and then re-reading, and again, but no matter how many times we read it, we’re not quite through it yet. ~John L’Heureux

 

daily schedule

Sunday
4 pm-onward: arrivals, getting settled
Monday
10 am-noon: craft discussion and generative-writing session based on the work of Toni Morrison
Tuesday
10 am-noon: craft discussion and generative-writing session based on the work of David Lee
7 pm to 8 pm: evening freewrite
Wednesday
Writing day
Thursday
Writing day
Friday
10 am-noon: workshop sessions
Saturday
Departure by 10 am