We are delighted to announce that we will be restarting our residential courses and retreats from 24th May, in accordance with Step 3 of the government roadmap, due to be announced on 17th May.

Places are being booked up very quickly so if you’d like to reserve a place with the deposit, please rest assured any monies paid will be fully refundable, for any reason.

We look forward to welcoming everyone back to The Garsdale Retreat.

Reflected Light – Responses to the Creative Arts (ed. Joy Howard)

We’re delighted to be hosting the Zoom launch of Reflected Light – Responses to the Creative Arts a new anthology edited by Joy Howard and published by Grey Hen Press. This will take place on Tuesday 23rd March at 7.30pm and will feature readings from poets: Kerry Darbishire, Caroline Gilfillan, Mary Chuck, Barbara Hickson, Kelly Davis and Joy Howard.

In Reflected Light – Responses to the Creative Arts, poets share their reactions to the creative art of others – painters, musicians, poets, sculptors, photographers and film makers, architects and more.

‘This is one of the most satisfying anthologies I’ve read for years: strong and characteristically original. As one form of creative art responds to another, we have here poetry that attends to everything from environmental catastrophe to pottery designs, from world famous paintinggs to graffiti, and which includes artefacts, exhibitions and installations of all sorts. An absolute delight.’ (RV Bailey)

‘An inspirational anthology.’ (Pauline Stainer)

‘A rich exuberant collection of vivid poems which will delight and enchant the reader.’ (Gabriel Griffin)

If you would like to  attend the launch, please contact Rebecca at garsdaleretreat@gmail.com who will send you the Zoom link details.

Our 2021 programme of courses, tutored retreats and untutored retreats is now open for bookings. With an outstanding line-up of tutors and guest readers, after such a restricted year and with news of forthcoming vaccines, bookings have set off at a lick.

If you are thinking about booking yourself a place but haven’t quite got around to it yet, it would be wise to put down a deposit to avoid disappointment. Courses and tutored retreats have a maximum of eight places, untutored retreats only seven and they are booking up fast!

If, due to Covid restrictions, a course/retreat can’t be residential you will get the choice to either attend online or have your deposit returned.  

We are delighted to announce Fleur Adcock’s new collection The Mermaid’s Purse is due to be published by Bloodaxe in February. We look forward to meeting her again when she returns to Garsdale as a guest reader on 15th September, 2021.

We are delighted to announce that, instead of cancelling our remaining 2020 courses, we will be running them online via Zoom. There are two poetry courses, one tutored by Helen Mort 7 – 11 September, the other by Kim Moore 5 – 9 October, Fiction Writing tutored by Hannah Vincent 21 – 25 September and a Memoir course tutored by Cathy Rentzenbrink 2 – 6 November. Places still available on all four but going fast! Please click on Courses tab for bookings and more details.

Sadly all untutored retreats have been cancelled.

We are still closed for all retreats and courses. We will re-open when it is 100% safe to do so, i.e. when masks and social distancing are no longer necessary. We want to ensure that all writers coming to The Garsdale Retreat will be able to benefit from the relaxed and creative atmosphere of the full Garsdale experience.

We are currently taking bookings for the Untutored August Retreat (24 – 29 August) and the remaining 2020 courses/retreats but with the proviso that they will be cancelled if it is unsafe for us to open. A £150 deposit will secure your place but will be fully refunded if the course/retreat cannot go ahead due to Covid-19.

Just to confirm, all courses and untutored retreats at The Garsdale Retreat are cancelled up to 14th June, for now. We will continue to monitor the situation and make further cancellations if needed, staying in contact with those who are booked on to courses/retreats after that date. Best wishes to all and happy writing!

Linda Cracknell has abridged Kathleen Jamie’s Surfacing for BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week (w/b February 3rd).

Paul Henry is interviewed in the current edition of Poetry Wales.

Congratulations to Carol Farrelly who has won the Short Story Mentoring Award in this year’s Bridge Awards. 

We are delighted to announce that Garsdale Retreat tutor, Roger Robinson has won this year’s TS Eliot prize for poetry. Roger led outstanding and inspirational courses in 2018 and 2019.  Participants were among the first to hear a live reading from his prize-winning anthology A Portable Paradise. Also,Vidyan Ravinthiran, a 2018/19 guest reader, was short-listed for The Million-Petalled Flower Of Being Here. Participants were lucky enough to get a sneak preview of this last year pre-publication.

Our first untutored retreat of 2019 – the Spring Retreat – just finished today with very un-spring like weather! This was more than made up for by the crackling open fires with the daily tea and cake. Participants managed to get much writing done as well as getting out for walks each day between showers. One intrepid writer even enjoyed a bracing dip under a gushing waterfall!