Manor Mill 2026 Writers Retreat

"Need a little time to wake up / what’s the story morning glory?"–Oasis "I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord"—Phil Collins

How do our thoughts, feelings, and observations take on different urgencies at the beginning and end of the day? We will explore two poetic forms / practices, the aubade and the nocturne, to generate new work. Through metaphor, symbolism, and other poetic techniques, as well as the study of examples by accomplished and celebrated poets, we will look inward to access prior knowledge and experience and plumb current mood, as well as turn outward through wondrous discovery and celebration of the immediate environment to communicate and chronicle our personal, human experience. This workshop will provide guided and free writing time, and the opportunity to share our work and offer and receive feedback in a safe and supportive environment.

The relationship with the father is a rich and complex terrain for poetic inquiry. In this generative workshop, we will look at poems to and about fathers from poets as diverse as Li-Young Lee, Sharon Olds, Bob Hicock, Robert Bly, Sylvia Plath, and Wallace Stevens to analyze routes of entry and strategies for engaging with the father figures in our lives. Participants will seek to unpack the paradoxes and tensions in how their fathers are encountered in memory and daily life.

What happens when your writing leaves the page and finds its way into the air? Reading your own writing is its own craft. In this hands-on workshop-meets-masterclass, we’ll explore how to naturally bring your work to life in front of an audience, without under- or over-performing. We’ll cover pacing, emphasis, breath, tone, and presence to give your words the authentic and compelling reading they deserve—in your voice.

If you have questions about traditional publishing--both from the editorial and the authorial perspective--working with a literary agent, working with a book packager, being a ghostwriter, or simply learning about a mega-plotter's writing process, now is your chance to ask them!

When writers hear “world-building,” they often think of high fantasy or sci-fi novels, à la Game of Thrones or Star Trek. But every writer engages with world-building basics, whether they’re drafting their memoir, writing a contemporary romance, or putting together a poetry chapbook.

In this discussion, Writer's Digest Managing Editor Moriah Richard will outline the parts of world-building that all writers need to be aware of, share some of the biggest dos and don’ts, and lead exercises that will help you think more deeply about the world-building in your latest work.

Everyone makes mistakes—even writers—but that's OK, because each mistake is a great learning opportunity. After working with over 100 debut authors and interviewing more, Moriah Richard has identified six of the biggest mistakes that writers often make—like not understanding the importance of setting realistic goals, writing for popular trends and trying to control everything in the writing and editing process—and in this discussion, will teach you how to avoid them.

To keep your readers turning pages, give them a story question with high stakes. In this session, we will look at ways to make your story more engaging by increasing the risks and rewards for your protagonist.

Whether you’re writing a thriller, a romance novel, or a short story, suspense is crucial for engaging your readers and moving your narrative forward. In this interactive session, we’ll dissect the techniques that animate fiction and keep readers turning the page. We’ll look at successful published examples, identify common challenges, and talk about specific strategies you can use to make your fiction writing more propulsive.

Do you have short stories, essays, or poems to get out into the world, but you’re not sure how? Has a mentor suggested that you publish a few short pieces in “lit mags” but you don’t even know what that means? Mary Chuey Bishop, a prose editor of the literary magazine “The Long and the Short of It,” will explain what lit mags are, why you may want to spend some time submitting work to them, and how and where to find the right ones for you. You will walk away with knowledge of free and paid platforms to guide your search and an insider’s take on what editors are looking for.

Are your metaphors as tired as a husky on a Georgia noon in August? Join writer and literary magazine editor Mary Chuey Bishop to examine three unusual ways to play with metaphors—crashing, stacking, and sensory mix-up—and what effect each has on the reader. We will engage in a discussion about when to let a metaphor strut the catwalk vs. when to keep it on the down-low. Participants will read samples from published texts and will have the opportunity to create their own to share if they wish. Feel free to bring examples of exquisite or jarring metaphors found in the wild to share as well.

What happens when the monsters in our stories come from the myths our grandmothers warned us about? In this session, gothic surrealist horror author Candice Lola shows writers how to mine folklore, ancestral memory, and cultural inheritance to build horror that feels both mythic and deeply personal. Drawing on her Brooklyn upbringing and her acclaimed collection Women of Glass and Other Parables, Candice will walk participants through a practical framework for transforming inherited stories, superstitions, and family lore into original, unsettling fiction. Attendees will explore how folklore creates atmosphere without cliché, how surrealism can carry emotional truth that realism can't, and how horror rooted in specific cultural traditions resonates far beyond its origin. The session includes a guided writing exercise where participants excavate a piece of folklore from their own background and begin shaping it into a scene. Writers of all experience levels and genres welcome.

Authors interested in finding an agent or publisher for a nonfiction book (including, in some cases, memoir) need a proposal that will catch and hold a gatekeeper’s attention. This course is for writers who have already drafted some or all of a nonfiction book or have a clear idea of what their book is about. You’ll receive guidance on every element of the proposal, from crafting a tight overview to identifying comp titles, a marketing plan, and an annotated table of contents. Participants will make real progress on at least one element of the proposal and take away an outline of the entire document.

The presenter will guide participants through each step of the small press publication process using her experience being published through The Wild Rose Press. Topics covered will include: -Characteristics of small presses -Locating reputable small presses that accept unagented submissions -Querying small presses -Contract considerations -Working with a small press to launch your book This session will help participants understand small press publication as an option and whether it might be a good fit for their book and writing goals.

After browsing through your favorite literary magazine, have you ever imagined opening those pages to see your short story in print, but wondered how to actually get your work out into the world? Maybe you’ve looked at databases of literary magazines, but have felt too overwhelmed by the sheer number that are open to submissions. You might have even paused to wonder what exactly those magazine editors are looking for and what grabs their attention in a submission. In Submit Now! we will uncover the mystery behind submitting to literary magazines by learning the ins and outs of choosing literary magazines that best fit your story’s style, what exactly captures an editor’s attention, and how the submission process usually works behind scenes at literary magazines.

You’ve published your book, now what? Authors have been known to cringe when faced with actually marketing their books. Jean Burgess, Ph.D. will present a three-pronged approach to developing creative direct book marketing events. The first segment – IDENTIFYING - asks attendees to focus on their target audiences as well as themes, organizations, and influencers to help with marketing approaches. The second segment – CREATIVE EVENT PLANNING –builds on the first segment, utilizing creative brainstorming specific to attendees' own books. Additionally, the presenter will share some of her own event successes and failures. And finally, the third segment – IMPLEMENTING – offers participants a “Checklist for a Successful Direct Marketing Event” to implement in their next event. Content delivery, worksheet exercises, discussion, and Q &A will be utilized.

Many writers dodge Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and other platforms as “too noisy,” but these places drive traffic to your writing. Learn how to use reels, hyperlinking and other dynamic ways to increase book sales or bring new readers to your Substack.

What makes a first line impossible to ignore—and a final line impossible to forget? In this generative, publication-minded workshop, writers of poetry and short prose will study how openings establish urgency, voice, tension, and trust, while endings create resonance without overexplaining. We’ll examine published examples, look at common reasons readers stop reading in a literary-magazine queue, and practice several ways into and out of our own work. Participants will revise an existing opening and ending, generate new possibilities through short exercises, and learn to read their drafts with both a writer’s curiosity and an editor’s attention. We’ll also discuss how strong beginnings and endings shape submission readiness, including titles, first-page presentation, and choosing pieces for a packet. Writers will leave with revised pages, practical editorial questions, and a repeatable strategy for catching the reader—and catching themselves—before the work is sent into the world.

This engaging workshop provides practical guidance for building a strong foundation to write and publish a book and helps beginning and established writers develop the clarity and conviction needed to sustain a long-term creative project.

Participants are offered a framework for crystalizing their project intentions: defining the deeper purpose driving their project and their core book concept, articulating the unique perspective they bring to the project and why they are uniquely suited to write it, shaping a compelling over-arching goal, and identifying the forces that will support or hinder their writing journey. They are provided with a roadmap for translating their insights into realistic next steps to move forward with clarity, momentum, and a plan they can return to when the writing gets difficult.

Inherited history and lived experience provide inspiring springboards for compelling historical fiction. This workshop explores how to ground a story in historical research that creates a credible, authentic world while using emotional tension to deepen a reader’s connection to the story.

Participants will explore how to connect personal stories to moments of historical significance and the symbiotic relationship between facts, imagination, and story. They will examine research sources, tools, and techniques, the importance of a focused research process, how to organize and incorporate research into their work, and how research can lend credibility to an imagined world. They will also learn the importance of weaving history into their prose selectively, incorporating just enough detail to illuminate character, heighten tension, and evoke emotion without allowing research to overwhelm the story.

Join Alexandra Hewett for an interactive creative workshop including improv, movement, and collaborative writing exercises. Writing can be a lonely process, come to connect and create…TOGETHER!

The session is limited to twelve participants. No preparation is necessary. Please dress comfortably, bring a notebook and pen, and your sense of adventure and curiosity.

Patricia shows how to investigate portraits and photos to develop non-fiction characters and inspire fictional ones. We'll examine photos for clues, information, and style, and use visual prompts to develop theme and plot. We'll reference the use of images in classic and contemporary fiction, from Oscar Wilde to Allen Levi, and.a new nonfiction work by author/former NYT reporter Doreen Carvajal that pairs the journey of a Renoir portrait with the life of the girl he painted.

Learn the powerful tool of the micro-essay, a form that challenges writers to hone their skills in a small space. Residing somewhere between prose and poetry, these bite-sized stories can make a reader feel known, spark an idea, and evoke laughter or tears (or both). Every word counts in contributing to what Edgar Allan Poe described as "unity of impression," the overall effect of the writing. In this working session, learn how this flexible form can benefit your writing, no matter the genre, and practice writing your own micro-essays.

In a discussion of select poems followed by a generative workshop, we’ll examine strategies for ending poems: conclusion, image, sound, refrain, lone word, the declarative flag, turnaround surprise, and questioning uncertainty. Poems from 2020 Pulitzer winner Jericho Brown, Frank O’Hara, Rilke, Shakespeare, Maryland’s Grace Cavalieri, Baltimore’s Liz Hazen, and Chen Chen provide great guides. Bring two copies of a draft poem (or flash fiction) that has bright spots, weak spots, and which you’re up for changing, and let's refresh our endings together. A focus on ending makes this workshop relevant across genres. If time allows, we’ll squeeze in some sharing or Q & A.

Here we’ll examine four innovative books of poetry for how they organize their unfolding, punctuated by two generative brainstorms to conceptualize where you are as well as those places you might go. Beginning with the three-part structure of Jericho Brown's Pulitzer-winning The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), we explore the atmospheric, mimetic structure of unfolding in Vievee Francis' Horse in the Dark (NW Univ. Press, 2012), then the disorientating logic of Whereas by Layli Long Soldier (2017), to close with Maryland-based Liz Hazen's thematic The Sky Will Hold (2026). Two generative interludes will invite you to map what you have, then play with alternatives. This workshop is ideal for someone with a draft poetry manuscript, or, twenty or so poems aiming there. Bring your pages. Participants don’t need to read each book in advance to appreciate their arcs, but doing so, before or after, should be inspiring.

You’ve worked hard on a beautiful manuscript. It’s been accepted for publication and you’ve been invited to give a reading. Or, perhaps you just want to up your game at local open mics? In a safe and encouraging space aimed to boost confidence and skill, our poetry night host, Mel Edden, will explore how to prepare for a reading, how to fully engage an audience, and how to enhance delivery in a way that equals the brilliance of your words on the page. This session will begin with a brief presentation followed by partner work and the opportunity to practice in front of a group. Participants should come prepared with one short, original piece of poetry or prose (250 words max).