Retreat West newsletters

With details of the competition winners and more:

The voting is closed and the winners of the August Micro Fiction competition are online. We had 177 votes in total. Find out which stories got the top spots. The next competition launches on Monday 2nd September. We've just announced the launch of a new Fantastic Flashing group online course to replace the flash retreat that had to be cancelled. It's a new version of the course too so new prompts, new readings, new approaches to writing flash. Just 12 places available. Get all the info here. Now that the summer is over, if you're looking forward to getting to grips with your novel again then there are just a few places left on the Ultimate Novel Writing Course that Amanda Saint is teaching through Jericho Writers. She designed this course with author and screenwriter, CM Taylor, to give tips and tailored advice all the way through. A writer from the pilot recently made the longlist of 26 out of 1343 entries in the Bath Novel Award with the manuscript Amanda and Craig helped her with. They can help you make your story stand out! If you can't commit to a full year then Amanda is also teaching elements of the course at the Italy Writing Retreat in October, which has just 3 rooms left now. And also at the Plot, People and Place Retreat in January in Devon, UK, which also has just 3 rooms left. Happy reading and writing!   The Flash Weekender £75 Spend the weekend online for 3 days of intensive flashing fun. Spaces limited to 20 writers. Online content, forum and tutor feedback on work created all included. Book Here Blog revisit: Get tips, ideas and a writing prompt to help you create three dimensional characters in this blog. Read it here Start Your Novel From £99 6 weeks of online course content to help you start a new novel or revise an early draft. Tools to help you plot, develop characters and create a believable world for a compelling story. Book Here Blog revisit: Ways to make sure character's voices are distinct and authentic even when you get too close to them to hear it. Read it here Flash Fiction Membership From £5 a month Entering lots of our flash comps? Sign up as a member and get entries included plus weekly emails and the Fantastic Flashing courseto develop your craft. Book Here Blog revisit: How to write a story that has emotional resonance and pace using the transformational arc to guide your novel. Read it here Copyright © 2019 Retreat West, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Retreat West Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House Trevissome Park Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN United Kingdom Add us to your address book

Hello, Hope your summer is filled with sunshine, reading and writing. We've posted up the longlist for the WIND themed flash comp and 20 stories have made it through to the next round. We'll be re-reading them all over the next few weeks and the shortlist will be published later this month. The next theme is WATER and you have until 29th September to send your flash stories for that one to get published on the website and win a cash prize. The latest prompt in our Monthly Micro competition will be online on Monday 5th August. We're blown away by how popular this new comp has turned out to be with hundreds of people submitting, reading and voting in the first two months of running it. We'll be introducing new features soon too with guest authors providing the prompts. Our fundraiser for free courses for low-income writers raised £540 in total and we are now accepting applications for the Start Your Novel Course and the Fantastic Flashing Course. Both of these courses are online and you work alone but will get feedback from Amanda Saint on work created during the course. We are giving away 12 of each course in total as we received a last minute donation that can fund four more courses. We've only given away one of each at the moment so 11 still available. To apply, email us letting us know which course you want and why. Tell us a little bit about you and your writing too. There's now just a couple of weeks left to enter the Retreat West Novel Prize and be in with a chance of winning a paperback and ebook publishing deal, with £500 advance, with Retreat West Books. Get all the info on that here! We've got a great interview with award-winning author, Angela Readman, just gone live on the blog. Angela's judging the 2019 Retreat West Short Story Prize and her stories have won loads of prestigious prizes, so her advice on how to write short stories is not to be missed. In just over a month, Amanda Saint's new Ultimate Novel Writing Course will be starting with Jericho Writers. There are just 2 places left on the course now so if you want an intensive year-long course with mentoring all the way through to help you write a novel, or revise an early draft, then you better apply quickly before the last places go! Amanda will also be teaching two workshops and providing book doctoring sessions at Jericho's Festival of Writing in September. If you're not ready to commit to a year-long course, then the Start Your Novel Course that Amanda teaches has some of the same content she teaches on the Jericho course, but is only 6-weeks long to help you get to grips with a new idea, or revise an early draft. Amanda will also be teaching elements of this at the Plot, People & Place writing retreat in Devon in January 2020, which has just four spaces left. And finally, we want to say congratulations to Amanda for being shortlisted in the latest Flash500 competition. Winners will be announced soon so best of luck for the final judging round! Happy reading and writing! From all of us at Retreat West WRITING RETREATS Plot & Character Retreat Join Amanda Saint for a 6-night writing retreat in Italy. Learn how to develop your novel plot and characters together to deliver a pacy read with emotional resonance. Only 3 rooms still available.   Get more info on the retreat venue's website Flash Fiction Retreat Amanda Saint and guest tutor, Michael Loveday, will be teaching at a 6-night retreat in Devon, UK. Learn how to write a novella-in-flash and get started with a flash collection. Only 5 rooms still available.   Get more info on our website WRITING COURSES Flash Weekender Join Amanda Saint and Mary-Jane Holmes for a weekend of online flashing fun. You'll write lots of new stories, read and discuss great flashes and meet other writers to get feedback from. Limited to 20 writers.   Get more info and sign up here Short Novel Classes Get to grip with your plot, characters and the world you're creating with these short novel writing classes from Amanda Saint. Start anytime and get the classes via email. From just £25.   Get more info and sign up here WRITING COMPETITIONS 2019 Retreat West Flash Fiction Prize Deadline: 27th October 2019 Judge: Meg Pokrass 1st Prize: £350 2nd Prize: £200 3rd Prize: £100 Enter your story here Copyright © 2019 Retreat West, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Retreat West Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House Trevissome Park Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN United Kingdom

The latest winners in our Monthly Micro competition have now been announced after 226 votes received in the past week. Find out which stories won here. The next prompt will be on the website on 5th August and we're excited to read what you all come up with. This new comp is the most fun new thing we've done at Retreat West in ages! Amanda Saint has been running a fundraiser to help low-income writers access the courses and retreats that we run. It closes at the end of this month and although the goal hasn't been reached we've raised £520 so far, which is enough money to give away lots of free courses to low-income writers. Rather than use the funds to give just one writer a retreat, we thought it was better to give more writers the chance to get help developing their writing. So, we are now accepting applications for the Start Your Novel Course and the Fantastic Flashing Course. Both of these courses are online and you work alone but will get feedback from Amanda on work created during the course. We are giving away 10 of each course at the moment. More will be added if we receive any more donations during the final week. To apply, email us letting us know which course you want, why you qualify and why you would like to take part in the course. Tell us a little bit about you and your writing too. There's now just under a month left to enter the Retreat West Novel Prize and be in with a chance of winning a publishing deal with Retreat West Books. Get all the info on that here! And only 5 more days left to book a place at the Flash Fiction Retreat in November with a £75 discount and free paperback edition of the Future Shock anthology of winning stories in the annual prizes, which is coming out with Retreat West Books in November. You only have to pay a deposit now and we can set up a payment plan over the next few moths for the balance. Happy reading and writing! From all of us at Retreat West WRITING RETREATS Plot & Character Retreat Join Amanda Saint for a 6-night writing retreat in Italy. Learn how to develop your novel plot and characters together to deliver a pacy read with emotional resonance. Only 3 rooms still available.   Get more info on the retreat venue's website Flash Fiction Retreat Amanda Saint and guest tutor, Michael Loveday, will be teaching at a 6-night retreat in Devon, UK. Learn how to write a novella-in-flash and get started with a flash collection. Only 5 rooms still available.   Get more info on our website WRITING COURSES The Ultimate Novel Writing Course We're working with Jericho Writers to bring you a year-long novel writing course with 1-1 mentoring and publishing support. Starts September 2019. Only 7 spaces left.   Get more info on the Jericho Writers website Flash Weekender Join us this autumn to get flash fiction prompts, readings and discussions via email and an online forum to chat and share work with your course mates. Only 20 spaces available. Get more info on our website WRITING COMPETITIONS Retreat West Novel Prize Deadline: 18th August 2019 1st Prize: Publishing deal with Retreat West Books with £500 advance 2nd Prize: Full manuscript critique 3rd Prize: One year's Gold Author Membership with Retreat West   Enter here Copyright © 2019 Retreat West, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Retreat West Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House Trevissome Park Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN United Kingdom