The Retreat is a charming, 150 year old house in the center of the village amidst shops, restaurants and pubs in the shadow of the inimitable Algonquin Hotel, open year round offering a magnificent spa, fitness center and wonderful sitting rooms where writers from the Retreat are always welcome.  Summer activities include sea kayaking, whale watching, sailing, golf on a world class course, swimming, and biking.  In the winter months there is cross country skiing across a stunning landscape.

Every determined writer needs a place to come to in this world. None more than new writers working on their admission manuscript to MFA programs, and recent MFA grads trying to finish their first book or screenplay.

Write in peace...
The Writing Retreat welcomes these writers to live and work together in an extraordinary place far from the madding crowd in one of the most beautiful and serene seaside villages in the world.

Supporting serious writers...
Under the direction of a novelist, screenwriter, and former Fellow at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, the Retreat has been home to MFA grads from the top writing programs in America. Among them a Wallace Stegner Fellow, a winner of the Alice James Poetry Prize, and scores of newly minted MFAs, all serious young writers who required an ideal place to live and work with strong editorial help, and direction to agents in New York and Hollywood.

MFA grads are awarded Fellowships to stay for up to a month in a private room for not a penny more than they can afford to pay. These writers are invited to the Retreat with the understanding that they will help the new writers who are there preparing their MFA application manuscripts and who are  charged $600 a week for a private room. Once these writers have finished their MFA programs they are then welcome to return as Fellows.

It is a perfect equation. And in this spirit of apprenticeship and mentoring the Retreat sustains itself to honor the dream of serious writers who hope to deprive the world of some of its indifference with the words they write.