Have Writing, Will Travel … We Hope

We’re a close-knit group of five writers — fiction, nonfiction, and poetry — who, in one interaction or another, has met for almost ten years. In different times we gathered almost every Friday evening in New York City, at Lincoln Center uptown or in Greenwich Village downtown, to review and critique each other’s manuscripts.

Among us we have several publications: a novel and two more on the way; at least one book of poetry; several essays; and a couple of winning contest entries. I trust each one of these writers and friends unconditionally and I hope they feel the same about me. I don’t feel I would be published without their insightful critiques.

As solitary as writing can be, and especially during these past five months, it has a collaborative dimension that I appreciate now more than I ever did. Thank goodness for Zoom. We’ve been able to keep meeting to encourage and congratulate each other through our various projects, as well as deal with anxieties and discouragement.

Thinking back to the writing retreats we have taken together makes me miss my friends even more. I guess it’s a good sign of our compatibility that we travel well together. We discovered that on a long weekend retreat in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania and confirmed it on a longer trip to Kerhonkson, New York, in the Hudson Valley. Why Kerhonkson, which none of has had heard of? It was within the two-and-a-half hour driving distance we set as a limit. We found an affordable Airbnb house to rent in a beautiful woodsy setting,

We each had our own bedroom in the big house and even more space for writing. There was ample time to write and enjoy each other’s company. We took time out for a few hikes and explorations of nearby towns, spent an afternoon at a nearby spa resort. Each of us took a night to prepare dinner for the group and we pooled our resources to produce breakfasts and lunches. No one of us made any demands on another, and I think that was the key to a restful and productive week.

We won’t get to have a retreat together this year, but we’re planning one for next year once (fingers crossed!) we’re sprung from our pandemic lockdown. Having lived and worked and created in isolation for more than five months, every place I find on the map sounds like a perfect retreat location!