Let’s write together — all year.

Every day. No matter what. Real writers write every day and I don’t care if your basement is flooding due to a climate-change fueled storm that also ripped the roof off and your dad keeps calling telling you the whole thing is a hoax for the Great Reset.

Well perhaps that’s not how this goes. “Real writers,” a concept I’m pretty sure is only useful as a tool of self-loathing, do one thing: They keep coming back.

Now we sound like an AA meeting.

But seriously. Let’s define a “real writer” as a person who writes regularly for a long time and at least occasionally does something with that writing so the rest of us can read it, returns to the page, again and again, no matter what, no matter how much time has passed, no matter how ridiculous the whole thing sounds. And because the only thing more miserable than writing is not writing.

The desire will not ever fully go away. And that’s what makes us “real writers.”

This idea of coming back again and again was the inspiration for the eight-month workshop series I offered in 2023. The first Sunday of each month, we met online, wrote, and studied an element of craft or process for 2.5 hours, and each week I held an online writing room. Many of the monthly workshops also involved feedback on writing.

I wanted to create a space where each month writers could return to their work, no matter where they had gone the month before. I hoped it would serve as a sort of accountability, mentorship group, and I was blown away by how close we all became. I mean, we really spent a lot of time together. It was wonderful.

It was such a success I expanded it to 10 months for 2024 (January – October (let’s be real, nothing happens in November and December)) and added quite a few new elements:

• of course, there are all new  workshop topics;
• a second mid-month “check-in” meeting, in which we’ll discuss how the writing is going and/or read each other’s work in small groups;
• an option for 1:1 video calls with me each month to increase the level of mentorship; and
• a WhatsApp group or Discord server (group can decide) that will be used for week-long writing “sprints” in which we’ll write every day for a week and hold each other accountable.

I truly hope you’ll join us. We really created a little community. And now, to our regularly scheduled description.

***

So what is this series about?

In my six-week workshops we often encounter topics that we’d like to discuss forever. The hour allows enough time to achieve quite a bit of depth, but some topics lend themselves to more hands-on work, extensive discussion, and more 1:1 feedback.

So I grabbed all those topics and turned them into in-depth sessions.

2.5 hours on the first Sunday at 10am PST/1pm EST of every month from January through October. You can sign up for one, a few, or all of them.

While the group is designed to be a longterm support system, you can also select only the topics you would like to study in more depth. Here’s what’s included in the 10-month series:

• You’ll start each month with a 2.5-hour workshop to get you refocused on writing.
• You’ll be a member of a private Facebook group where we will keep each other accountable and you’ll be invited regularly to share your work, respond to others, etc.
• Online writing sessions once a week (these are standing meetings, come when you can).
• My feedback on 5 pieces of writing.
• A WhatsApp group or Discord server to help us facilitate week-long “writing sprints” in which we write every day.
• A mid-month check-in call.

Every workshop allows the time we need to go more deeply into each topic and have opportunities for discussion, questions, and breakout rooms for workshopping writing.

Why does the term “breakout room” hurt my soul a little? I think I’m having flashbacks to beige Marriott conference rooms and corporate bonding.

I’m excited about this. Nerd-level excitement. Almost as excited as when I have a blank Japanese notebook in my hand.

I apologize for exaggerating.

For each workshop, we’ll meet online (Zoom or GoToMeeting) from 10am-12:30pm PST/1-3:30pm EST. Dates are listed below, but as I said, it’s the first Sunday of each month January – October. 

• Recordings will be made available afterward for download.
• You can buy the whole series upfront for €1690, which is a savings of €200 from the individual prices.
• Or you can subscribe to 12-month installment plan (€149/month) or four installments (€488/every 3 months)
• You can also purchase a single workshop individually through the links below.
• Enrollment is capped at 10.
• In five of the workshops I will provide feedback on your writing.

Note: If you’ve taken my 6-week workshops before, why would you also take these? Good question. So glad you asked. Brief answers follow, but always feel free to email me with questions:

• Much more depth to the discussion
• New examples and sources of all craft and process artists
• Hands-on work. As in, you will receive prompts, write, and receive feedback just on that topic so you really come away with clarity on a very personalized basis.

Alright, here we go:

Why do you write? Locating your identity as a writer

Writing Emotionally Resonant Scenes

Procrastination, Fear, and How to Write Anyway

Developing Persona & Creation of a Narrator

The Braided Essay: Choosing Topics, Connecting Themes, Creating Structure

What’s a plot and How do I make one?

Listening for voice: What makes you different from other writers?

Sentence-level Analysis: What specifically do we look for to simply write better sentences?

The Role of Conflict in narrative & characterization

Rhythm & Pacing

Why do you write? Locating your identity as a writer

Sunday, January 7 (10am PST / 1pm EST)

We don’t have to write every day to be “real writers.” In fact many of us cannot write every day. We do, however, have to keep coming back to writing, no matter what, over and over again. That motivation must come from inside of us, and it’s unique to each of us. In this workshop we will explore what drives you to creative work–your interests and priorities, as well as what you get from this work–so you can situate yourself in the larger creative world and tap into that motivation when you need it.

Buy just this workshop (please read refund policy at bottom of this page):

Writing Emotionally Resonant Scenes

Sunday, February 4 (10am PST / 1pm EST)

How do we move beyond the boring recitation of a character’s feelings as the only way to convey emotion? How do we write a scene that conveys deep emotion without affectation or hyperbole? In this workshop we will discuss the actual methods used in writing to create the type of scene that moves the reader to emotion, situates the emotion in the body of the reader (you know what I mean–chills, tears, racing heart). We will examine the writing of experts at this and practice it ourselves.

Buy just this workshop (please read refund policy at bottom of this page):

Procrastination, Fear, and How to write anyway

Sunday, March 3 (10am PST / 1pm EST)

What is the relationship between fear and procrastination, and how do we determine a hesitation based on an intuitive sense that we’re about to do something stupid vs that weird nebulous fear that ALWAYS tells us “we better not take any risks”? We will go deep into the ego and the role of fear from a primal sense all the way to the bullshit trying to run our lives from a place of inaction seeking a delusion of safety. It’s March; let’s get this sorted now so we can write the fucking things we want for the rest of the year.

Buy just this workshop (please read refund policy at bottom of this page):

Developing Persona & Creation of a Narrator

Sunday, April 7 (10am PST / 1pm EST)

First: What the hell is a “persona” and what is a narrator? What are the roles of these devices and how do we create them? What aspects of the story should we take into account when deciding on a point of view, persona, narrative voice? And how do these things all relate?

Buy just this workshop (please read refund policy at bottom of this page):

The Braided Essay: Choosing Topics, Connecting Themes, Creating Structure

Sunday, May 5 (10am PST / 1pm EST)

Look: We’ve all done it. We want to bring two topics together and examine them alongside each other. Or two moments we believe are connected but we’re not sure how to explore that connection in writing and make it clear and meaningful. I fucking love braided essays, and when done well, they’re powerful as hell. Let’s create one together. You’ll bring ideas and we’ll workshop them so you end this session with an early concept for a braided essay.

Buy just this workshop (please read refund policy at bottom of this page):

What’s a Plot and How Do I Make One?

Sunday, June 2 (10am PST / 1pm EST)

It may seem simple but is it? A bunch of shit happens, characters do things, the reader is entertained. But what separates a plot from an arbitrary chain of events? How do we connect plot and character? Why is that even the goal? In other words: How the fuck do we choose what happens in our stories, and if writing memoir: How do we choose which events from our lives to include?

Buy just this workshop (please read refund policy at bottom of this page):

Listening for Voice: What makes you different from other writers?

Sunday, July 7 (10am PST / 1pm EST)

They say (who is they?) that voice is the single most important aspect of writing. I believe this. Voice is the thing that makes me read an account of a trip to the grocery store with as much delight and interest as I may read War and Peace. You have a voice, and it is your greatest power as a writer. But first we have to figure out what it is so you can then figure out how to edit TO your voice, which conveniently is our workshop topic in August.

Buy just this workshop (please read refund policy at bottom of this page):

Sentence-level Analysis: Building on July’s discussion of voice, this month we’ll examine: What specifically do we look for to simply write better sentences? 

Sunday, August 4 (10am PST / 1pm EST)

The month in which I reveal my full nerd, borderline unhealthy love of sentence-level editing. I will share every single method I have developed over ten years of academic study of language plus 13 years of creative writing on my own – to MAKE BETTER SENTENCES. Why am I yelling? That’s surely a different workshop. We will examine sentences and workshop them together. You will leave this workshop with a checklist to use when editing your own work. Sentence-level editing is what makes writing shift from meh to incredible. It’s what allows voice to come through, rhythm to sing, style to show itself in a way that will set you apart from other writers. I am already turned on. It’s fine.

Buy just this workshop (please read refund policy at bottom of this page):

The Role of Conflict in Narrative & Characterization

Sunday, September 1 (10am PST / 1pm EST)

What are the types of conflict in plot, character, and narrative, and why do we care? What can conflict DO for our writing and storytelling? How does it build, show, and enhance three-dimensional characterization? What can it reveal about the interiority of our characters and ourselves? This may sound boring BUT IT ISN’T.

Buy just this workshop (please read refund policy at bottom of this page):

Rhythm & Pacing

Sunday, October 6 (10am PST / 1pm EST)

How do we slow down our narrative & speed it up? How do we choose what should be scene vs. description/exposition? What is the difference between these two types of writing? How much description should we use, and how do we even decide what needs detail and what doesn’t? This month we discuss how and when to speed up, slow down, write a scene vs. gloss over with a brief summary. We’re looking for balance, friends, and we’ll workshop your writing in a very friendly way to figure out what this looks like.

Buy just this workshop (please read refund policy at bottom of this page):

Annie Dillard chose some violence in her fabulous book The Writing Life: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim.”

THEREFORE: Let’s schedule 2024, together, and write.

Here’s what you get:

• Monthly in-depth craft & process workshops for 10 months (25 hours total)
• Feedback on five pieces of writing
• Invitation to private Facebook group
• Access to my weekly online writing room (drop by, say hi, write, leave)
• Focus on writing (and redirection if you’ve fled the coop) for 10 months of 2024
• Monthly check-in meetings

Sign up in one payment and save €200. Sign up for the series in installments and save €100 (but first, please read refund policy below):

Sign up in one installment of €1690:

Sign up in 4 installments of €448 (paid every 3 months):

Sign up in 12 installments (€149/month):

I AM NOT FUCKING AROUND PACKAGE:

If you would like to buy all of the above plus have a monthly 1:1 video conference with me and my review & feedback on 10k words/month, plus unlimited email support for the 10 months, you can buy that here, or email me for an installment arrangement. If you are serious about finishing a book or other major project, we can get it done in 2024 through this series and mentorship. I am also, for the record, not fucking around. Let’s do this.

**By signing up, you agree to the following refund policies**

• For individual workshops, I can offer a refund up to 30 days before the starting date of the workshop. After that I cannot offer a refund. But you are very welcome to transfer the credit to a different workshop.
• For the series, I can offer a refund up to 30 days before the start of the first workshop and a 50% refund before the February workshop. After that, I cannot offer refunds. (Please note that if you encounter a serious financial hardship during 2024 I am not going to chase you down or some shit; I always work with people. I also just need to protect myself, my business and family. As I’m sure you understand. LOVE YOU.)

 :

“He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself.

The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness,

blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing,

lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all,

to make the world a more human dwelling place.”

–  James Baldwin

The Role of The Artist: 

A 6-day writing retreat with

Janelle Hanchett

***

September 17-23, 2023

Agriturismo Le Pianore

Tuscany, Italy

***

All slots have been filled as of May 2023

In 2015, I held my first writing retreat with eight women. They were all from the first writing workshop I had ever taught, and we had been working together for a year.

In a word, it was magic. And you know how I feel about words like “it was magic.”

Only it was, in fact, magic.

The following year, I held my first retreat with 12 people who weren’t in that writing group, and it was, again, don’t make me say it.

We spent mornings on a sunny deck drinking coffee under the coastal redwoods, then headed off to the yurt with a roaring wood stove to discuss various aspects of the craft of writing. We ate lunch together at a massive, ancient wooden table, enjoying food prepared by my best friend, Sarah, who also happens to be a chef.

In the afternoons, we spread out around the retreat center and wrote or read or napped, sat in the hot tub or took a dip in the pool. In the evenings, we (well, they, since I don’t drink) sipped wine on the deck and after dinner, gathered around the enormous fireplace in the main ranch house to workshop one another’s writing.

We left as friends and better writers. And possibly crying.

These retreats have been transformative, and since we now live in the Netherlands, we figured we’d better take advantage of, well, Europe. So in 2021, we headed to southern France.

We hiked in the Pyrenees (look, I’m sorry the hike was longer than I thought it would be), got attacked by wild goats at lunch, recovered in ancient Roman baths deep in a valley under the soaring mountains. We visited the local market, laid down on the country road in the middle of the night to look at the stars, and ate croissants every morning from a local bakery.

This summer we went to a 10th-century castle in rural Catalunya. While there we learned that it was run by an order of women for 100 years during the 11th century, which is absolutely unheard of. A whole community of women developed and thrived in the valley, until the Pope decided they had grown too powerful and shut down the order.

And when two guests (one of whom is my husband) literally heard women’s voices singing, the proprietor said “Oh, those are the women in the stones. They are happy you are here, a group of women writers.” I got chills again just now.

We walked to a very, very old hostel where the menu consisted of eight choices, handwritten, and every item came from the farmers in that very valley. We walked home at midnight under a night sky you wouldn’t believe.

We took a rack rail train into the Spanish Pyrenees and spent an afternoon at high-mountain lake with cafes and a very friendly Spanish dude renting little boats to paddle around in the sunshine. I can’t make this shit up.

And through it all we write, study writing, laugh with and learn from each other.

What I’m saying is this: My retreats are as much about living as they are about writing. They are about experiencing this world in a vivid and authentic way. They’re about just enough adventure (I do about 9 billion hours of research for our activities, but I have never been, so we are up for adventure). They are not curated perfection.

They are about being awake to this life, the people on this earth, the characters, the stories, the beauty and annoyance and wildness we encounter every day. How else can we write? How can we make art?

Somebody said writers are people who pay attention to things.

Real people, real food, real locations, real friendship.

And, at times, real wtf. We’ll pay attention, and we will remember.

In September 2023 we’re headed to a very special 12th-century farmhouse and retreat center set in the heart of Tuscan Maremma, surrounded by woodlands, vineyards, olive groves and mountain streams. Unblemished views and landscapes as far as you can see. In the words of Elena, the founder:

“When we came upon Le Pianore for the first time back in 1990, there was no way to reach it by car, so we wrapped our feet in plastic packets and crossed the icy stream standing between us and our future home on foot.  We must have been quite a site walking through that wintry forest, as I was heavily pregnant with our second child and my husband Francesco was carrying our young son in his arms, trying to protect him from the falling snow with piece of torn-off cardboard.

Villa Maladina appeared at the end of a small dry stone-walled path, and I had a tremendous feeling of déjà-vu: I had dreamt of this very moment the previous night, and it felt to me as though we had finally come home.”

Please let’s look:

This is an organic produce and winery owned by a family for 22 years. Grandparents to grandchildren. Babies born and raised here. A family–did I mention that?

Apparently there are white horses that run through the hills near the property. I am not joking.

Forest, streams, miles to wander. A wooden deck in the side of a hill on the property where you can do yoga in the mornings, read, or, and this is what I will definitely be doing: Lying on blankets at night to stargaze in the pitch dark.

This is not tourist Tuscany. This is family, food, nature, life.

Join us at Le Pianore September 17-23.

We will wake up, eat a lovely breakfast (and consume a lot of coffee and tea), then we’ll have 2.5 hours of craft workshops in the seminar (yoga) room –actual workshop space!

We will eat lunch, then have afternoons free for writing, exploring the area, sleeping, chatting. Staring off into the mountains and looking for the white horses, which apparently exist. I am not joking.

You can hike to neighboring villages, take a swim if it’s warm enough, or find a private nook to write in. Most bedrooms have their own bathrooms, and desks, but there are lots of places for you to be alone and write or read and think.

In the evenings we’ll enjoy dinner prepared by Sarah with locally sourced ingredients. We will reconvene in the evening for discussions and/or workshop writing.

As always, my approach is this: I want us comfortable, content, friendly, mellow, and having A LOT of possibly raucous fun while also writing and seriously considering our relationship to writing.

Forgive the cliche but we work hard and play hard. I remind writers always that they are spending money on this—and so we shall write. I take my commitment to you very seriously and am honored you trust me as a teacher and mentor.

I built my writing career from 40 blog readers while raising three, then four kids. I published a book in 2018 and have a Master’s degree in English. I see writing in realistic terms and work from a place of pragmatism and honesty instead of airy declarations of the muse: I won’t insist you find “your jewel within” (simply because I don’t know what the fuck that means), but I will remind you how Toni Morrison wrote her first book on a yellow legal pad next to a toddler, who then vomited on it, and how she “wrote around the puke.”

I’m a write-around-the-puke kinda writer. But the thing is, in my opinion, that is the jewel, and it’s one I know well. It’s the one that has in fact changed my life.

We think. We discuss. We get deep into the grit of it. And then we pull back and enjoy our surroundings, food, each other, and life.

I want you to leave with a feeling of experiential transformation. As in, the experience itself adding as much to your writing as the workshops.

Here’s a sample daily schedule: 

So, this retreat is for the writer looking to improve their craft, get writing done, and hang out in Tuscany.

While we will talk about creative work generally, and focus some on fear and the thought processes that block us from writing, our main focus is on improving our skill in writing. That said, this is not a lecture/school course. This is a dynamic, fun, interactive time for you to hone your craft and learn how doing often affects thinking.

In other words, the act of writing often systematically deconstructs our fears about writing. I will explain this more, but for now, you’ll have to trust me.

This is why I focus mostly on craft. Because if we focus on becoming the best writers we can become, a lot of the mental bullshit will fall away. Or, perhaps better said, it simply becomes irrelevant.

Sleeping Arrangements:

This retreat is open to 12 writers. There are many room and bed options, ranging from single to triple occupancy, twin to double or queen-sized beds. Below I have listed the room options and prices, but once you send me the application and we’re good to go, I’ll ask you to choose a room. If you know immediately what you’d like, just let me know in the email and I’ll reserve it.

Getting there:

You can fly into Rome or Florence. The retreat center is 2 hours from each (smack in the middle of the two). We will be chartering small busses from Rome or Florence, or possibly one to each, but this will be arranged on a planning call once the retreat is filled.

Transport will be an extra €170, and I AM SORRY ABOUT THIS. You can definitely rent a car with other writers if it’s cheaper, but given inflation and the cost of rental cars and fuel, I kinda doubt it will be. Not sure how aware you are of the inflation in western Europe, but holy shit. And the energy and fuel crisis. It’s fun.

Anyway the key point here is you will not be left alone to figure out how to get to a farm in the middle of the Tuscan countryside, with only kind Italian farmers to help you. Wait. Why does that sound fun.

We will have a Facebook group and then a WhatsApp group closer to the event. We will have planning calls and discuss all the things.

I truly hope you join us.

P.S. If this is not a fit for you, we will also hold retreats as I’ve done in the past.

The Role of the Artist: 
A Writing Retreat in Italy with Janelle Hanchett

September 17-23, 2023

Cost: €2500-€2850  (can be paid in installments; please email me to discuss)

Anyway, here’s what that cost includes:

• • • • Six-night accommodations
      • All of your meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, all prepared by Sarah, a professional chef. Healthy, expansive, and locally sourced.
      • 2.5-3 hours of writing craft instruction each morning (Again, if you’ve attended my retreats/workshops before, don’t worry, the content will be NEW.)
      • 1 hour of evening time together, either in a writing roundtable (where we receive feedback on work submitted), or have a discussion on writing process
      • Optional hikes, yoga, and journeys into nearby villages.
      • A full day outing. I usually make this a surprise but I will offer a HINT in the form of the photo to the right. Everything else, though, I ain’t mentioning.
      • Afternoons and evenings around free for writing, reading, staring into the distance. We often we end up hanging out, drinking wine (well, I don’t), listening to Mac and Sarah play guitar and sing. Somehow this seems to be everyone’s favorite feature of these retreats. DON’T WORRY I’M NOT OFFENDED.

Here are the rooms available. I cross them off as they fill but leave them here for my own bizarre, boring reasons.

Single bed in large triple-occupancy room with en suite bathroom: €2500 (2 of 3 available)

Single bed in double-occupancy room with en suite bathroom: €2600 (1 of 5 available)

Queen bed in double-occupancy room with en suite bathroom: €2650 (1 available)

Single bed in large double-occupancy room with en suite bathroom & private terrace: €2700 (1 available)

Queen bed in large double-occupancy room with en suite bathroom & private terrace: €2750 (1 available)

Queen bed in single occupancy room with en suite bathroom: €2850 (1 available)

Double bed in single-occupancy room with adjacent bathroom shared with one other room: €2700 (1 available)

Note: This retreat is fully booked as of May 2023. However, you can sign up for my mailing list to receive information regarding upcoming retreats!

*REFUND POLICY: The €400 deposit is non-refundable. The full retreat amount will be due June 1, 2023. If you cannot attend the retreat after you’ve paid the remaining balance, I will refund you if I can fill the spot, but I must be notified by July 1, 2023. I’m sorry this is so strict. I had a very questionable man last year announce to me one week before the retreat that he wouldn’t be paying. Just flat out invented a story and expected to come anyway, for free. One of the most astonishing things I’ve ever experienced. I also once had three people cancel two weeks before the retreat. Frankly I don’t charge enough to accommodate this sort of thing and my laidback ways tend to bite me in the ass. Is this the longest refund policy ever, and the most ridiculous? I sure hope so. Anyway, by paying the deposit you agree to this policy. Thank you!

 :

Craft Enables Art: 

A 6-day writing retreat with

Janelle Hanchett

***

July 13-19, 2022

El Castell de Llaés, Ripollès region, province of Girona, Spain

In 2015, I held my first writing retreat with eight women. They were all from the first writing workshop I had ever taught, and we had been working together for a year.

In a word, it was magic. And you know how I feel about words like “it was magic.”

Only it was, in fact, magic.

The following year, I held my first retreat with 12 people who weren’t in that writing group, and it was, again, don’t make me say it.

We spent mornings on a sunny deck drinking coffee under the coastal redwoods, then headed off to the yurt with a roaring wood stove to discuss various aspects of the craft of writing. We ate lunch together at a massive, ancient wooden table, enjoying food prepared by my best friend, Sarah, who also happens to be a chef.

In the afternoons, we spread out around the retreat center and wrote or read or napped, sat in the hot tub or took a dip in the pool. In the evenings, we (well, they, since I don’t drink) sipped wine on the deck and after dinner, gathered around the enormous fireplace in the main ranch house to workshop one another’s writing.

We left as friends and better writers. And possibly crying.

These retreats have been transformative, and since we now live in the Netherlands, we figured we’d better take advantage of, well, Europe. So in 2021, we headed to southern France.

This year we’re going to Spain. To a 10th century castle. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s real.

Join my husband Mac, Sarah, and me July 13-19, 2022 for a 6-night writing retreat at El Castell de Llaés in the province of Girona, 100 kilometers from Barcelona. We will wake up, eat a lovely breakfast (and consume a lot of coffee and tea), then we’ll have 2.5 hours of craft workshops focused on getting more of you—your voice, insights, and style—onto the page, because, as Ursula K Le Guin says, “Craft enables art.”

We will eat lunch, then have afternoons free for writing, exploring the area, sleeping, chatting. Staring off into the mountains and imagining all that happened in that castle.

In the evenings we’ll enjoy dinner prepared by Sarah with locally sourced ingredients. We will reconvene in the evening for discussions and/or workshop writing.

My approach is this: I want us comfortable, content, friendly, mellow, and having A LOT of possibly raucous fun while also writing and seriously considering our relationship to writing.

Forgive the cliche but we work hard and play hard. I remind writers always that they are spending money on this shit—and so we shall write. I take my commitment to you very seriously and am honored you trust me as a teacher and mentor. I built my writing career from 40 blog readers while raising three, then four kids. I published a book in 2018 and have a Master’s degree in English. I see writing in realistic terms and work from a place of pragmatism and honesty instead of airy declarations of the muse: I won’t insist you find “your jewel within” (simply because I don’t know what the fuck that means), but I will remind you how Toni Morrison wrote her first book on a yellow legal pad next to a toddler, who then vomited on it, and how she “wrote around the puke.”

I’m a write-around-the-puke kinda writer. But the thing is, in my opinion, that is the jewel, and it’s one I know well. It’s the one that has in fact changed my life.

We think. We discuss. We get deep into the grit of it. And then we pull back and enjoy our surroundings, food, each other, and life.

I want you to leave with a feeling of experiential transformation. As in, the experience itself adding as much to your writing as the workshops.

Here’s a sample daily schedule: 

So, this retreat is for the writer looking to improve their craft, get writing done, and hang out in an ancient castle surrounded by incredible landscape.

While we will talk about creative work generally, and focus some on fear and the thought processes that block us from writing, our main focus is on improving our skill in writing. That said, this is not a lecture/school course. This is a dynamic, fun, interactive time for you to hone your craft and learn how doing often affects thinking.

In other words, the act of writing often systematically deconstructs our fears about writing. I will explain this more, but for now, you’ll have to trust me.

This is why I focus mostly on craft. Because if we focus on becoming the best writers we can become, a lot of the mental bullshit will fall away. Or, perhaps better said, it simply becomes irrelevant.

You don’t need a project. You can journal. You can take notes. You can revise old work. But we WILL get you writing by god.

It’s fine. I’m not really that crazy. Or am I?

What’s the venue? 

Well, this is:

“Castell de Llaés is a 10th-century castle, a Cultural Good of National Interest and a Protected Historical Heritage. It is classified as Spanish “Rural House,” a project of constant reform and improvement.

“Currently, the fortress preserves the appearance of the castle, the tribute tower, the courtyard of arms, and the religious center with a landscaped area, the small cemetery, and the Sant Bartomeu church, with a Romanesque style.”

*IMPORTANT NOTE: Access to the castle is not prepared for people with reduced mobility since the last 50m are on an ascending ramp and only accessible on foot. I am sorry about this. All of my retreats thus far, and those in the future, have been (and will be) accessible to those in wheelchairs and with limited mobility. 

Let’s just look at some photos:

Yes, you read that correctly. From the 10th century, as in, the 900s. What does that even mean?

Imagine 6 days to hang out here and study writing, think, walk, write. Tons of places for you to sneak away and write. Friends available for hikes or an evening walk. There are rivers nearby, lakes, waterfalls, old ass churches, cobblestone squares. Oh, that sweet Europe stuff.

Sleeping Arrangements:

This retreat is open to 12 people. All rooms are for two people, some with double beds and some with twins (slight price difference indicated below).

Getting there:

The easiest way is to fly into Barcelona (an international airport) and rent a car from there. It’s about an hour’s drive from there, but trust me, the area is STUNNING and you will have fun in that hour’s drive. Writers often coordinate renting a car together and carpool and pick up wine on the way and it’s all very fun and chill.

We will have a Facebook or Slack (TBD) group for attendees where all this will get sorted. For an additional cost, we can provide transportation to and from Barcelona.

My recommendation is to fly into Barcelona, meet up with a couple of writers, hang out, and drive to the castle together. A little pre party.

Anyway, there are options and we can figure it out together. But, for a quick idea of flight costs, use Google Flights to plug in your closest airport to Barcelona.

I truly hope you join us.

Craft Enables Art: 
A Writing Retreat in Spain with Janelle Hanchett

July 13-19, 2022

Cost: €2100-€2200  (can be paid in installments; please email me to discuss)

Anyway, here’s what that cost includes:

• • • • Six-night accommodations
      • All of your meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, all prepared by Sarah, a professional chef. Healthy, expansive and locally sourced.
      • 2.5 hours of writing craft instruction each morning (Again, if you’ve attended my retreats/workshops before, don’t worry, the content will be NEW.)
      • 1 hour of evening time together, either in a writing roundtable (where we receive feedback on work submitted), or have a discussion on writing process
      • Optional hikes, (possibly) bike rides, and trips into nearby villages.
      • Evenings around free, but often we end up hanging out, drinking wine (well, I don’t), listening to Mac and Sarah play guitar and sing. Somehow this seems to be everyone’s favorite feature of these retreats. DON’T WORRY I’M NOT OFFENDED.

Double bed in a double-occupancy room: €2200 (1 available)

Single bed in double-occupancy room: €2100 

To secure your spot, please send a €300 deposit* through the link below (please read the refund and cancellation policy first). You can then email me with your room preference and I’ll reserve it for you on a first-come, first-served basis. If you’d like to just pay for the whole spot outright, let me know and I’ll send an invoice.

***Sign-ups for this retreat have closed, but you can sign up for my mailing list to receive updates on my upcoming retreats! 

*REFUND POLICY: The €300 deposit is non-refundable unless I can fill your spot w/ someone on the waitlist. The full retreat amount will be due June 1, 2022. If you cannot attend the retreat after you’ve paid the remaining balance, and don’t let me know before June 1, 2022, I cannot offer a refund. If you cancel after June 1, 2022, the remaining balance is still due. I’m sorry this is so strict. None of us make a killing on this and my family would be totally screwed if I had to cover missed spots at the end. And I once had THREE people drop out two weeks before the retreat. Awful. Is this the longest refund policy ever, and the most ridiculous? I sure hope so. Anyway, by paying the deposit you agree to this policy. Thank you!

Check it out. We aren’t ending 2021 on that last post I wrote.

I didn’t mean to leave us there for so long, but, to be frank, my blog was the last of my concerns. It isn’t that I didn’t care, or don’t care, it’s that my life was stripped to the bare minimum. Stay alive. Don’t drink. Get through the day. Sorta.

And I had nothing to say. I said it all on the day I said I couldn’t seem to will my legs to move.

And because I was empty. I write from the inside, you know? Interests, curiosity, concern, joy, rage. What do you pull from when there’s nothing but blank space?

How do you weave a string of words into meaning when you can’t find any?

It all sounds rather dramatic unless you’ve been there. I felt I had been entirely hollowed out. It will be a long, long time before I understand what happened in this depression.

I have been writing. I’ve been writing long, wandering essays that may take shape someday, and I’ve been writing non-essays that probably have more hope. I’ve been writing in my journal, in notes on my phone. I’ve been reading. I’ve been praying. I’ve been wondering how it was that I felt like myself again though I know exactly when it was.

See? This is good news. I AM SO MUCH BETTER. Do you know how long that depression lasted? Almost two years. From September 2019 to July 2021. I know this because I keep a journal. And yes, because the end was really that clear. Really that defined.

I’m sharing this part because I seem to hear less about depression that lasts for a long time but does, eventually, go away, or shift into something new. Something tolerable. It’s almost like it becomes integrated. I am not talking about resigning oneself to meaninglessness and pain, but rather that the pain and meaninglessness seem to have done their job, and they leave.

There is an appropriate, enlightened way to talk about depression and what I just said is not it.

The idea that pain may have a purpose, that it’s doing something vital and unique to itself—as in, no other source could teach me what that pain taught me–that I may have, as a person, needed it—I can already hear the internet telling me I’m dangerous and toxic and misinformed.

Whoever decides the parameters of these conversations seems to have made clear that the only story we are supposed to tell is “Depression is a chemical illness and we need medication.” And it ends there.

The thing is, I agree with this statement. I knew it was true then and I know it now. And it didn’t bother me. What bothered me was that there didn’t seem to be anything past that.

The idea seems to be that we are supposed to accept the endless pursuit of new and better pills as the correct and awakened method for treating depression and expressed deviation from that is dangerous.

My problem was that the pills didn’t do much for me.

That’s not true. The medicine brought me from non-functional to Vaguely Functioning—and that, if you think about it, is a fucking big deal.

But those pills were my last frontier and last hope, so when my mood stayed as dark as a Dutch January I almost felt—worse? As in, final hope gone. Because where do you go after you’ve played your last hand?

Have I used enough cliches or shall I press on?

Yes, I could change pills. And we were talking about that. But the last time I had an intense clinical depression (when sober enough to differentiate that from regular old alcoholism), I got on Zoloft and was a new human. I went from just on the edge of “postpartum psychosis” to a job, regular exercise, moving houses, and a new life that felt satisfying and real.

The pills this time made me able to get dressed before noon sometimes and stop thinking that if I killed myself my children would be happier.

That’s a damn low bar.

The idea that my sole job in that condition was to find new and different and better pills, many of which I have already taken, many of which have already given me the worst withdrawals I’ve ever had—harder than cocaine, opiates, or alcohol (I’m looking at you, Effexor!)—with some of the most awful side effects including, but not limited to: hallucinations (my favorite was when snake scales slowly crawled up my boobs), gaining 70 pounds in 3 months, cold sweats, insomnia, memory loss, and the total inability to have sex—well, perhaps you can forgive me if LET’S LAUNCH DOWN A PSYCH MED ROAD was not my singular, most joyful approach.

Plus, my life’s circumstances were new and intense. I couldn’t imagine the depression wasn’t at least in part circumstantial: new country, pandemic, first time away from my home, family, friends. I knew I needed help. I knew it had passed the point of “I’ll just take more walks and eat better.” But I also never felt comfortable with “my brain just needs chemical balancing” as a solution.

While trying to figure out what to do with all of this, I started seeing an acupuncturist who is, now stay with me here, a healer. Yes, I said healer. An actual healer. Not one of these assholes who enjoys the sound of her own voice so much she’s convinced she’s a shaman–but like, one of those people who has an indescribable energy of seeing.

Welcome to the new Janelle. She says things like “healer” and “indescribable energy of seeing.” Whatever. I ate my encapsulated placenta. I’ve always been like this. You’ve probably just been in denial.

Anywho, he began telling me things I did not enjoy hearing but that resonated with me on a level that’s hard to describe. I would lie face down with needles in my butt while he said words, and tears would fall out of my eyes and drip through the little face hole.

Bit of an awkward awakening.

I’d tell you all the things he said but that’s a longer story and longer piece of writing because it’s very personal, and delicate, and because I don’t want you to think I am declaring that a person can be healed from clinical depression with well-placed needles and words. Or maybe they can? I don’t fucking know and I ain’t giving medical advice and I’m not your life coach. I am merely recounting my life here.

I will tell you that one of the things we found together was that I was standing between two worlds, unwilling to accept a new way of being, a new relationship to home, work, family, friends—and unwilling to let go of the old one. I was liminal as fuck.

Fighting. Resisting. Clinging. Very, very confused.

We talked about the soul needing to learn some shit as we move through life. I SAID SOUL AND I MEANT IT.

At the same time he’s doing his thing my therapist starts hitting me with “Janelle, if you want to get through this you have to actually feel things,” if you can imagine that shit.

You think you know a person then one day they’re telling you to stop numbing yourself with a cell phone addiction.

I like to write true things as jokes to avoid real emotion. Wait.

Let’s change the subject. GODDAMNIT.

So between needle guy talking about how some egos die harder than others, the Dutch therapist telling me to “actually feel things,” and my own restlessness, I was beginning to suspect that I, in fact, was going through some sort of bullshit growth I never asked for.

Then the therapist is giving me assignments like “The next time you’re feeling vulnerable and sad try to let Mac hug you for fifteen seconds without stiffening like a board.”

Have we rounded the fucking bend here?

The thing to do when feeling vulnerable is to signal to all loved ones in the vicinity that if they come any closer you’ll eat their face off with your bare hands.

I’m good at feelings.

Look, if I’m really fucked, I put my forehead against my dog’s forehead and cry, or tell him about it. This action was, in fact, what made me realize I have never in my life been able to accept comfort from a human being.

What kind of bullshit news is that? I regularly go to my dog for comfort, even physical comfort, and the thought of doing that with a human is incomprehensible. Apparently, though, some people accept hugs when they’re sad, or kind words, or back-patting, or some other weird demonstration of “support.”

I started wondering if this was the part of me that needed to die. (Ya fuckin think?)

Alright enough therapy hour. The point is I started searching with my whole self, as if my life depended on it, for what all this pain was about. I started asking a simple question, and I don’t even know who I was asking: What do you want me to learn from this?

I developed a rabid obsession with reading about depression and melancholy through the ages and through religions and histories: St. John of the Cross’s dark night of the soul, Jung’s alchemic processes of internal transformation, beginning with nigredo, the Greek mythology’s descent into the underworld. Shit, I even hit up Keats’s melancholy.

I wanted to learn what I needed to learn. I felt the world or universe or god was trying to teach me something and I could not find it. There’s a line in my book that says “I didn’t want the pain gone. I wanted it to mean something.”

What kind of new bottom is quoting yourself?

Whatever. Between that and soul growth there’s nothing left anyway.

I guess what I’m saying is I know that sometimes I have to suffer a whole lot before I can get someplace new. I’ve lived that once. Why did I think it wouldn’t happen in sobriety? Why did I think my Self wouldn’t need some serious changing? And why, perhaps most importantly, would I ever think that losing everything that made me feel connected, human, and safe (new country, hi), then finding myself cut off from the ability to create new connections, friends, home, delusions of safety (pandemic)—why did I not suspect this might take me down to the bones?

“I have a feeling you think this is going to pass on its own.” Damn that needle guy.

Check it out, once again: I don’t know what you need to do for your depression. What I knew, or at least suspected, what I felt deep in my blood, was that something was happening to me and I couldn’t just pill it away. I absolutely needed that medication. I am grateful for it and I think there’s a decent chance it saved my life. It definitely saved my sobriety (I was about five minutes from drinking, because it’s a slightly slower way for me to kill myself and everything I love).

But I KNEW this wasn’t going to pass without me doing something. I could feel myself stripped of everything that gave meaning to my life, and I couldn’t create new shit, and I couldn’t find anything in myself. To survive, I had to believe that what I was going through had some meaning, that if I could face it, and face it squarely, and integrate whatever truth existed deep in it, that I would find what I needed.

And the truth is, folks, the process I’m describing up there is in fact a very, very old process, but we sure as hell don’t talk about it. Someday I will talk about it. Someday when we have more time.

**

I don’t think I was off the plane in San Francisco for ten minutes before I felt that sprawling gray lift out of my body.

Maybe it was the warmth (read: Satan’s armpit) of California summer. Maybe it was my beloved state’s trees and mountains and crystal blue of the lakes. Maybe it was the smell of Tahoe pines. Maybe it was Bodega Bay fog.

Maybe it was seeing friends I love with whom nothing is forced. Who I’ve known for years. Who tell it to me straight. Who know it all, already.

Maybe it was being around my own culture and people even though I low-key hate them both. Americans don’t exactly, as a whole, make me swell with pride, as we ban books we don’t like and abortions we don’t like and sing our bullshit country songs of sequin patriotism while waving flags in the faces of hungry kids and wondering what the problem is.

But we are more, of course we are, and for better or worse, I am American.

Maybe it was the fact that people understood me and I didn’t have to work at it and I had a sense of humor again because there was no language barrier blocking sarcasm and understatement comprehension.

Maybe it was going home.

It was definitely going home.

I don’t think we’re aware of how many tiny moments of human connection are created through language and shared culture. Until they’re gone. I don’t think we understand what it feels like to sit effortlessly with a friend over coffee, until it’s mostly gone.

I am misunderstood in my daily life as often as I worry about being misunderstood. I find myself purposely refusing to have real conversations with people around me because it’s just too hard. It’s too much effort for too little return. We still aren’t going to know each other. We still aren’t going to connect. I will leave this conversation wondering how many times my humor didn’t translate.

And over my time here, compounded by lockdown after lockdown, my world got smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier until it was just me, on the couch, wondering if there was ever a person in the meat sack of my body, writing to you about depression.

But I see now that it had to get small, to get me down to the bones. To get me relying on nothing because nothing is there. To get me stripped down to the person who can’t receive a single hug when she’s afraid and heartbroken. To get me to let go of the lifetime of defense, rage, and self-delusion that had me convinced I could go it alone.

It doesn’t work, ya know. It doesn’t work.

I’m not fixed. But I’m closer to a freer, truer self than I’ve ever been.I don’t know why the depression lifted out of my body when I went to California. It felt like I suddenly remembered who I was. “Oh, right,” my whole self seemed to say, “I’m a person. I have a home and friends and a sense of humor and roots way down into the ground.”

I felt a lightness for the first time in years. An energy. A silliness. And a looming dread that the second I went back to the Netherlands it would all go away again.

But it didn’t. By the end of my month in California, I wanted to return. I missed it. I missed our little life here. My kids started saying, “I want to go home,” which was really something.

I remember riding my bike in the sun after returning and noticing that the same lightness existed. I remember a sense of gratitude so deep it gave me chills. I remember feeling like I will never understand how it feels that some things are one day removed from me, not beaten to death, not talked away with a therapist, not diluted with a pill.

I needed it all to get well. I needed the pills and I needed the needles and needle-guy truth and I needed the therapist’s terrible ideas about normal human connection and goddamn I definitely needed the miracle that is my dog.

In a way, I came back to California and felt the arms of old friends and family and the trees and ground give me that fucking hug my therapist insisted I learn to accept.

I didn’t see it coming. I’m not sure what will come next. But I see again, I get what I need, and I am just happy to be here. DAMNIT.

Happy fucking New Year, friends. Here we are. Here we are.

my mom took this picture of me the other day in Amsterdam and it struck me how genuinely happy I look

We Are All Apprentices : 

A 6-day writing retreat with

Janelle Hanchett

***

October 6-12, 2021

L’Isle-En-Dodon, France

In 2015, I held my first writing retreat with eight women. They were all from the first writing workshop I had ever taught, and we had been working together for a year.

In a word, it was magic. And you know how I feel about words like “it was magic.”

Only it was, in fact, magic.

The following year, I held my first retreat with 12 people who weren’t in that writing group, and it was, again, don’t make me say it.

We spent mornings on a sunny deck drinking coffee under the coastal redwoods, then headed off to the yurt with a roaring wood-stove to discuss various aspects of the craft of writing. We ate lunch together on a big wooden table, enjoying food prepared by my best friend, Sarah, who also happens to be a chef.

In the afternoons, we spread out around the retreat center and wrote or read or napped, sat in the hot tub or took a dip in the pool. In the evenings, we (well, they, since I don’t drink) sipped wine on the deck and after dinner, gathered around the enormous fireplace in the main ranch house to workshop one another’s writing.

We left as friends and better writers. And possibly crying.

These retreats have been transformative, and since we now live in the Netherlands, we figured we’d better take advantage of, well, Europe. So we’re heading to southern France.

Join my husband Mac, Sarah (my best friend and our chef), and me June 2021 for a 6-night writing retreat in L’Isle-En-Dodon in France, 60 kilometers from Toulouse on the road to the Pyrenees. We will wake up, eat chocolate and butter croissants delivered straight from the local baker (and consume a lot of coffee and whatever Sarah makes), then we’ll have 2.5 hours of craft workshops focused on getting more of you—your voice, insights, and style—onto the page, because, as Ursula K Le Guin says, “Craft enables art.”

We will eat lunch, then have afternoons completely free for writing, sunbathing and swimming at the pool, or taking bike rides or walks or car trips into nearby villages for the outdoor market, or to see the 12th-century cathedral, or to sit in the square and watch the people go by (my actual favorite thing to do in Europe). In the evening we’ll enjoy dinner prepared by Sarah with locally sourced ingredients. We’ll reconvene in the evening to workshop writing.

We will have one day entirely free for an outing that we’ll choose together in advance, but I’m leaning toward a trip into the Pyrenees.

My approach is this: I want us comfortable, content, friendly, mellow, and having A LOT of possibly raucous fun while also writing and seriously considering our relationship to writing.

Forgive the cliche but we work hard and play hard. I remind writers always that they are spending money on this shit—and so we shall write. I take my commitment to you very seriously and am honored you trust me as a teacher and mentor. I built my writing career from 40 blog readers while raising four kids. I published a book in 2018 and have a Master’s degree in English. I see writing in realistic terms and work from a place of pragmatism and absolute honesty instead of airy declarations of the muse: I won’t insist you find “your jewel within” (simply because I don’t know what the fuck that means), but I will remind you how Toni Morrison wrote her first book on a yellow legal pad next to a toddler, who then vomited on it, and how she “wrote around the puke.”

I’m a write-around-the-puke kinda writer. But the thing is, in my opinion, that is the jewel, and it’s one I know well. It’s the one that has in fact changed my life.

We think. We discuss. We get deep into the grit of it. And then we pull back and enjoy our surroundings, food, each other, and life.

I want you to leave with a feeling of experiential transformation. As in, the experience itself adding as much to your writing as the workshops.

Here’s a sample daily schedule: 

So, this retreat is for the writer looking to improve her craft, get writing done, and explore one of the most beautiful and iconic places in the world. 

While we will talk about creative work generally, and focus some on fear and the thought processes that block us from writing, our main focus is on improving our skill in writing. That said, this is not a lecture/school course. This is a dynamic, fun, interactive time for you to hone your craft and learn how doing often affects thinking.

In other words, the act of writing often systematically deconstructs our fears about writing. I will explain this more, but for now, you’ll have to trust me.

This is why I focus on craft. Because if we focus on becoming the best writers we can become, a lot of the mental bullshit will fall away. Or, perhaps better said, it simply becomes irrelevant.

You don’t need a project. You can journal. You can take notes. You can revise old work. But we WILL get you writing by god.

It’s fine. I’m not really that crazy. Or am I?

What’s the venue? 

Well, this is:

This is a family-owned French farmhouse surrounded by sunflower and wheat fields, and the rolling hills of the Gers. From the owner: “In the heart of sunny south-west France, entirely surrounded by the rolling countryside, with the Pyrenees shimmering in the distance, La Rivière is nestled in a one-acre park within walking distance of a sleepy picturesque market town.”

And oh, we will definitely go to that market town.

I don’t do fancy. I don’t do stuffy or pretentious. I looked for this place for a full three days, scouring, searching, and when the owner told me that it was her family home and that her parents worked to make it warm, cozy, and comfortable, I knew it was correct. Also, her great-grandfather was a Welsh poet and her father a journalist. Obviously a sign from god.

Here are a few more photos of the house and the surrounding area and village within walking distance:

It will be hot. I’m definitely swimming.

Dinner outside? Yes.

we will have our writing workshops in here. We will get REAL comfortable.

The village that’s a 15-minute walk from the house. There will also be bikes available.

the village

Tons of places for you to sneak away and write. A pool to lounge by. Bikes available for rides into the village. Friends available for an evening walk. There are rivers nearby, lakes, waterfalls, old ass churches, cobblestone squares. Oh, that sweet Europe stuff.

Sleeping Arrangements:

This retreat is open to 12 people and there are various sleeping accommodations available, ranging in price. There are two rooms available as solo rooms, one with its own bathroom. Next, there are rooms with two twin beds, and rooms with a double and two twins. Most accommodations are shared, but not with many, and the house is quite large with lots of places to get privacy.

Getting there:

The easiest way is to fly into Toulouse (an international airport) and rent a car from there. It’s an hour’s drive from Toulouse, but trust me, that area is STUNNING and you will have fun in that hour’s drive. Usually, writers coordinate renting a car together and they carpool and pick up wine on the way and it’s all very fun and chill.

We will have a Facebook group for attendees where all this will get sorted. You can also take a bus from Toulouse to the farmhouse. We will provide bus times and info in the FB group. For an additional cost, we can provide transportation to and from Toulouse.

It will most likely be significantly cheaper to fly into Paris. Also, this may be a good excuse to hang out in Paris if you’re into that sort of thing. You can then fly from Paris to Toulouse (1-hour flight that’s about 70 bucks), BUT you have to deal with the fucking big-ass Paris airport. You can take a train from Paris to Toulouse, but it’s 7 hours. Good time to write, though, and see France. I love trains.

And, of course, you could rent a car in Paris, meet up with a couple of writers, hang out, and road trip to the retreat center. That, to me, turns this into an adventure and I’m into it.

Anyway, there are options and we can figure it out together. But, for a quick idea of flight costs, use Google Flights to plug in your closest airport to Toulouse.

October 6-12, 2021

L’Isle-En-Dodon, France

Pricing:

Cost: 1800-2400 euro* (depending on room type). Please note that if you live in the EU, I have to charge you 21% VAT. I’m sorry, but I know you’re used to it.

Anyway, here’s what you get:

• • • • Six-night accommodations
      • All of your meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, all prepared by Sarah, a professional chef. Healthy, expansive and locally sourced.
      • 2.5 hours of writing craft instruction each morning (Again, if you’ve attended my retreats/workshops before, don’t worry, the content will be NEW.)
      • 1.5 hours of an evening writing roundtable, where you will receive feedback on your work if you’d like, and offer feedback to others. I will comment on all writing submitted.
      • Optional morning yoga with Sarah, a certified yoga instructor.
      • Optional hikes, bike rides, and trips into nearby villages.
      • Evenings around free, but often we end up hanging out, drinking wine (well, I don’t), listening to Mac and Sarah play guitar and sing. Somehow this seems to be everyone’s favorite feature of these retreats. DON’T WORRY I’M NOT OFFENDED.

Double bed in a private room with en suite bathroom: €2400 (reserved)

Double bed in double-occupancy room w/ en suite bathroom: €2100 (1 available)

Single bed in double-occupancy room w/ en suite bathroom: €2000 (1 available)

Double bed in private room: €2200 (reserved)

Single bed in double-occupancy room: €1900 (2 available)

Double bed triple-occupancy room: €1900 (reserved)

Single bed in triple-occupancy room: €1800 (both reserved)

To secure your spot, please send a €300 deposit* (please read the refund and cancellation policy below) through the link below. You can then email me with your room preference and I’ll reserve it for you on a first-come, first-served basis. If you’d like to just pay for the whole spot outright, let me know and I’ll send an invoice.

I truly hope you join us. I am really, really excited to do this with you in France.

Updated June 11, 2021: The retreat is sold out (thank you so much). To be added to the waitlist, please email me at janellemac@gmail.com.

And let me know if you want to be notified early or upcoming retreats. We’re going to Spain or Portugal in Spring 2022. It won’t suck.

*REFUND POLICY: The €300 deposit is non-refundable. The full retreat amount will be due August 1, 2021. If for some reason you cannot attend the retreat, I cannot offer a refund on the remaining balance unless there is a waitlist and I am able to fill your spot (and there is usually a waitlist). I’m sorry this is so strict. None of us make a killing on this and my family would be totally screwed if I had to cover missed spots at the end. And I once had THREE people drop out two weeks before the retreat. I blame Trump. Is this the longest refund policy ever, and the most ridiculous? I sure hope so.