Kick-start your summer writing with time in the Green Mountain State.

Step out of the noise of your daily life and step into a quiet sanctuary, where you will find inspiration, space, and community—all designed to help you deepen your connection to your writing life.

June 11-15, 2026

@ The Creative Campus at Goddard

Plainfield, Vermont

APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN!

TO APPLY:

1. Click on the button to begin your application. You will be directed to a brief questionnaire on Google Forms to help us get to know you and what you are looking for in a retreat.  No writing sample required.

2. On the Google Form, there will be a link near the end that brings you back to us for your application fee of $35. Pay, grab the secret code on the bottom of your application payment form, and then go back and submit your form using this code. It’s sounds like a IQ test, but it’s easy!  

Once we have both your answers submitted in the Google Form and your fee, we will review your application in the next round (usually weekly) and get back to you in approximately one week’s time.  Any questions, you can always reach out to us at twotreeswriters@gmail.com. 

The Two Trees Solstice Retreat

This is your time.

The Emphasis at this retreat is inspiration: both to generate new material for upcoming projects and to offer insights and energize projects already in process.

The Mornings offer uninterrupted time for writing, thinking, walking, dreaming and communing with nature.

Each Afternoon will offer a generative workshop to spark your intuition and to engage in creative play, with specific writing prompts to lead you towards sometimes mysterious, sometimes unexpected, but always timely new directions.

The Workshops:

Spinning Gold: The Wild Card Edition (with Sherri L. Smith)

All stories are made up of patterns— once upon a time, happily ever after, the end, and a hundred more complex threads. Once you start to see them, you can parse the possibilities and weave true beauty. In this generative workshop we will pull cards from a variety of oracle and creative decks to deepen our writing. Do you have a piece already? Want to spot the archetypes at play? This class will help you find them. Looking for a new idea? Get inspired by fairy tales and female writers of the past. Using writing improv techniques that keep your hand moving, come surprise yourself with the story patterns you discover and spin them into gold.

 What If It Isn’t? Re-envisioning Your Words (with Rahna Reiko Rizzuto)

Revision. It is the essential bane of a writer’s process. When we have to tighten up, double down, expand, cut, focus – all in the name of wrestling that thing that we want to say into shape so that the rich world in our heads can be at least partially reflected on the page.

But what if that wasn’t true? What if revision could be re-envisioning, and if the task could be a joy? A moment of play when we aren’t narrowing something down into its smallest, most impenetrable version, but breaking it open to see what’s really there?

In this workshop, we are going to use images as inspiration to loosen up our thoughts and words and find new ways to joyfully encounter what we hadn’t really seen but was always there.

Divine Lines (with Elena Georgiou)

The first divine line: Your imagination already knows the way.

In this generative workshop, we’ll draw on stichomancy—divination through randomly selected lines—to open new pathways into our writing. Through a series of guided invitations, you’ll be supported in generating fresh material and reconnecting with work that may have gone quiet.

Some practices will build on one another; others will invite spontaneity and surprise. Together, they are designed to help you move gently but meaningfully into your work—both during our time together and as you return to your own writing practice.

The Evenings will include informal social events—a salon, a café, a group tarot reading, and other impromptu happenings that will bring us together as a community of writers. We are also delighted to announce the gift of a sound bath from one of our participants, and are really looking forward to this very special experience.

The "Play Station": This may or may not be physical, and it may or may not include morning prompts, your own tarot pulls, opportunities to write in invisible ink or consider images that are not really there…let it be a mystery, but know there is more to explore!

This Rustic Retreat takes place on 200 acres of lush land that was once a dairy farm, then an innovative college, and now a creative campus, which is exploring a variety of ways to embrace sustainability. Nestled on the edge of the tiny village of Plainfield, this bucolic timber and stone campus is the perfect setting for writers who want a relaxed, casual atmosphere to focus on their work in a supportive environment.

And last, The Magic: All our events will be held in the Martin Manor. In the 1920s, shortly after this house was built, a formal garden was added, which included a maze that is still in pristine shape and is available for walking at any time day or night. After this formal garden was added, another dwelling was also built—the Garden House, which also has its own garden of a completely different type—elaborate stonework accented by rams’ heads, spouting water that runs into a small stone pond, and framed by shade and benches—another magical another place to sit, think, read, and write. 

Included in the Retreat:

• • 4 nights of modest dorm lodging (single or shared double)
  • Breakfast, lunch, and dinner 
  • Extensive writing time
  • Daily workshops and gatherings
  • Indoor and outdoor writing spaces
  • Access to trails
  • Free on-site parking
  • Free WiFi connection

The Cost: We have tried to keep the tuition and fees affordable and flexible. Choose your own adventure!

The Private Package $1145 (includes all workshops, events, meals, facilities, your own private dorm room, parking etc.)

The Comfort Package $1025 (everything included in the private, except it's a double room for sharing with a friend.)

The Day Pass $880 (all workshops, events and meals. No lodging but come to campus breakfast and find a nook or a tree or a table somewhere to spend your morning.)

*tax on select Vermont-based services will be added at checkout

If you are interested in coming home to yourself in a magical place infused with the spirit of writers who studied and created here over decades at one of the most innovative and ground-breaking colleges in the country, then we would love to have you apply!

FAQs, Policies, and the Fine Print:

Deadline to apply: We have opened a few more spaces. Admission is rolling until full, so the earlier the better!

How to apply: Please use the link above to start your application with a few brief answers in our Google Form and follow the directions to pay your $35 non-refundable application fee. Don't forget to submit your Google Form; you will need the code at the bottom of your application check out to do so. If you have any problems, please let us know by emailing us at assistant@twotreeswriters.com, or using the contact form on the contact page.

What happens next? If you are accepted into the retreat, welcome!  We can't wait to spend time with you. You will receive an acceptance email, which will contain directions for where and how to register and pay your tuition.

Tuition: Your choice of package and tuition is variable, but whatever you choose, the full payment is expected at the time you register to secure your place. Space is limited, and unpaid acceptance slots will not be held.

What’s not included: Alcohol is not provided (you can bring your own and we have been told there will be a pub on campus by the time we are there! The campus is a drug free space.

Cancelation policy: Once you are accepted, your registration and payment are due within 48 hours, and your payment is not refundable, except in the case that the retreat is canceled by Two Trees (refunded in full) or the Creative Campus is closed due to force majeure (includes state or federal Covid closures).

Accommodations: ADA compliant living spaces are available, but cannot be guaranteed unless the request is received by us upon acceptance. (If you prefer not to climb stairs, please let us know.)

Please see our Terms of Service for more information on Two Trees’ policies.