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The 2012 Workshop Retreat Schedule will be posted here in January 2012.

The 2012 Workshop Retreat Schedule, Thus Far

2012 will see six week-long residential workshops scheduled, and as is the norm, the rest of the year will be dedicated to individual residents working on their own focused projects. The following are the first two workshop retreats scheduled, both during May; the other four will be scheduled and posted soon. Whether you choose your own retreat to work on your own project or a workshop retreat, I hope to see you retreating to Anam Cara sometime during the next year.

Retreat to Deep Ireland

clouds_above_mishkish Retreat to Deep Ireland
Facilitators: The Beara Writing Experience’s John O’Leary, Sue Booth-Forbes, and Paddy O’Conor (www.beara-writing-experience.com)
Arrival: 9 April 2012
Departure: 16 April 2012

“Sometimes we need to set down our burdens and wait for our souls to catch up.”

As a participant, you can expect to:

Retreat into the atmosphere of peace and tranquility that is the Beara Peninsula.
Enhance your own creativity and your writing skills as you study Irish literature, history and culture and gain inspiration from a landscape whose haunting beauty cannot but lead to an enlargement of the heart and mind.
Immerse yourself in rural Irish life and culture.
Find freedom and enrichment in the natural beauty of the landscape and the sea.

So Much More Than It Seems...

vanessa_gebbie_2 Short Fiction: So Much More Than It Seems...
Led by Vanessa Gebbie (www.vanessagebbie.com) One-week Residential Workshop Retreat
Arrival: Saturday, 9 June 2012
Departure: Saturday, 16 June 2012

“A chance to explore in depth the craft of short fiction in all its challenging guises, in one of Ireland's most creatively exciting venues. A chance to focus on acquiring skills that will maximise the chances of your work rising to the top and standing out for the right reasons not only in publication slush piles but also in competitions.

In the company of a well-published, multi-prize-winning short storyist, who is also an experienced tutor, this will be a focused, collaborative workshop retreat during which you will create not only complete new work and the seeds of many new stories, but you will also discover tried and tested strategies for editing and revising your existing work to make it as good as it can be. We will make full use of the local resources to find fresh inspiration. Although biased towards the art and craft of short fictions, we will also be able to explore the relevance of the craft issues to prose poetry and longer works.

Painting the Irish Landscape, From a Tonalist Perspective

Painting the Irish Landscape, From a Tonalist Perspective
Facilitator: Sue Gilkey (www.suegilkey.com)
One-week Residential Workshop Retreat
Arrival: Saturday, 16 June 2012
Departure: Saturday 23 June 2012

Open to all levels, this oil painting workshop will move between field studies and studio painting. We will start by gathering information, painting in some of the most beautiful locations on the Beara peninsula. Outdoors, the focus will be on color notes that describe the quality and temperature of the light and shadow. Ireland’s atmospheric conditions are both stunning and elusive. We will back up our information with on site photos.