We’re back! After much searching, WRA has found a beautiful new location in the Berkshires with an exciting agenda planned for our Writer’s Weekend Retreat. Brook Farm Inn—a stately historic inn—(https://brookfarm.com) is located just one mile from The Mount (https://www.edithwharton.org) where we will spend Saturday afternoon on a private tour of the Edith Wharton estate, followed by a writing workshop held in the gilded drawing room. Revel in the experience of writing in a new place. Think about your writing goals and engage in the camaraderie of WRA. Join us for a nurturing experience on every level. Write. Read aloud. Listen. Take time for yourself.

 

To ensure an intimate atmosphere, this retreat is limited to 16 writers. This includes facilitators: Julie Maloney and Donna Baier Stein. All participants will have the opportunity to write in 6 workshops. This is a perfect time to discover new material, as well as to continue with an ongoing writing project. All workshops follow the Amherst Writers and Artists Method. WRA invites you to write, relax, and breathe in a weekend devoted to your writer’s self. It’s time.

 

WORKSHOPS: Led by Julie Maloney & Donna Baier Stein

JULIE MALONEY is founder/director of WOMEN READING ALOUD. Julie teaches writing workshops throughout the year, gives readings, and speaks to “Writing As A Life Tool” in a variety of venues. She leads a “Writing to Heal” Series she developed for the Carol G. Simon Cancer Center at Morristown Memorial Hospital in NJ. She comes to the writing world after an extensive career as dancer, choreographer and artistic director of her own company. Her book of poems, Private Landscape, has been published by Arseya Publishing. Julie is a former columnist for SilkPurse Women featuring Women in the Arts. She has been on faculty with the (IWWG) International Women’s Writing Guild.  Continuing the widespread growth of WRA, she has lead two Writing and Yoga Retreats in the South of France, as well as a spectacular international writer’s retreat in the Czech Republic in 2019.  In June, 2022, she returns to Greece to facilitate her tenth international writer’s retreat on Alonnisos. Her award-winnning debut novel, “A Matter of Chance” (She Writes Press), was selected by USWEEKLY Magazine as a trending book. This literary psychological suspense won the Eric Hoffer Book Award for General Fiction for 2019. Always, she continues to write poetry. Her latest novel-in-progress is also psychological suspense. Visit: www.juliemaloney.net

DONNA BAIER STEIN is the author of The Silver Baron’s Wife (PEN/New England Discovery Award, Foreword Reviews winner, Will Rogers Medallion Award Finalist, more), Sympathetic People (Iowa Fiction Award Finalist and Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist), Sometimes You Sense the Difference (poetry chapbook), Letting Rain Have Its Say (poetry book), and Scenes from the Heartland: Stories Based on Lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton (Foreword Reviews Finalist). She was a Founding Editor of Bellevue Literary Review and founded and publishes Tiferet, an interfaith literary journal. She has received a Bread Loaf Scholarship, Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars Fellowship, grants from the New Jersey Council on the Arts and Poetry Society of Virginia, a Scholarship from the Summer Literary Seminars, and more. Donna’s writing has appeared in Next Avenue, Virginia Quarterly Review, Saturday Evening Post, Writer’s Digest, Confrontation, Prairie Schooner, New York Quarterly, Washingtonian, New Ohio Review, and many other journals as well as in the anthologies I’ve Always Meant to Tell You (Pocket Books) and To Fathers: What I’ve Never Said (featured in O Magazine). Donna has taught writing workshops through The Writers Circle, Tiferet, International Women’s Writing Guild, and many other venues in person and online. In an earlier incarnation, Donna was an award-winning copywriter for Smithsonian, Time, World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and many other environmental and nonprofit clients in the direct marketing industry. www.donnabaierstein.com

Upon registration, (open mid-May), all rooms will be assigned by a lottery system. Please do not call the Inn for a preferred room. There are 2 “easy access” rooms on the first floor. If you need this assistance, please contact: julie@womenreadingaloud.org 

 

In coordination with the administration of The Mount-Edith Wharton’s Home, WRA is thrilled to make this location part of our weekend retreat. The Mount is a country house in Lenox, Massachusetts, the home of noted American author Edith Wharton, who designed the house and its lush grounds.

Inclusive: $1295  – includes deposit (non-refundable) – $300

Your deposit secures your place.

To register, email: julie@womenreadingaloud.org

All workshops (6), materials, meals – 5 meals (Dinner open on Sat. night), private bedroom and bathroom (2 nights).  Taxes and gratuities.  “Welcome Dinner” on Friday evening.  Private tour of The Mount – Edith Wharton’s home. Check-in: Friday – 3 PM.  Check-out: Sunday – 3PM – after a fabulous brunch!