2027 Residencies

At Rosemary’s House, we offer different types of retreat programming, designed to meet the needs of our creative community. Our residential workshop retreat is our signature programming. We will also offer hybrid workshop/seminar weeks with generative writing exercises, curricular structure, and seminar sessions. Regardless of which week you attend, all of our retreats are centered around three questions:  

  • What makes a story compelling and sellable?

  • Which stories reflect our times?

  • How can you capture your unique story?

Residential Workshops

Rosemary's House offers signature residential workshop retreats, where each day unfolds with a group workshop dedicated to exploring the nuances of storytelling. Participants will benefit from personalized feedback, receiving insights from both the mentor-in-residence and their fellow writers. We advocate for writers to select a cohort led by a mentor whose expertise aligns with their individual craft and professional aspirations. Our workshops are intentionally multi-genre, bringing together writers with diverse strengths and backgrounds. This eclectic mix enriches the collective understanding of story architecture, allowing writers to cross-pollinate ideas and overcome narrative challenges.

  • Multi-Genre Workshops: Engage in daily sessions led by successful mentors to enrich your understanding across various writing genres.

  • Personalized Feedback: Receive in-depth mentor and peer feedback on a 3500 word sample and project outlines, tailored to your unique style and goals.

  • Dedicated Workshop Time: Enjoy a dedicated session to deeply engage with your work and receive focused group discussion and critique.

  • Project Crafting Guidance: Obtain expert advice on crafting your project and planning your professional trajectory, including insights into publishing and marketing strategies.

  • Storytelling Expansion: Learn new techniques for developing compelling characters, vivid settings, and mastering narrative structure and dialogue.

Hybrid Seminar/Workshops

For writers hoping to develop their creative practice and looking for generative exercises and space for experimentation, we will be offering hybrid seminars with Claudia Rankine and Jericho Brown. While the mentors will offer space to workshop and read participants’ submissions, this will not be the main focus of the workshops.

  • Claudia Rankine: Image to Imagery

We will explore images in the creation of imagery within the poem. We will concern ourselves with how to read images; how to carry them into the lyric; and how to keep image and the lyric in relation on the page. We will also workshop pieces by each workshop participant.

  • Jericho Brown: Jumpstart Your Engines Poetry Workshop

In the Jumpstart Your Engines Poetry Workshop, Jericho Brown helps students generate new work through a set of unconventional exercises that keep our ears open and our fingers moving. The workshop engenders new ideas about writing, and as there is a profound relationship between reading poetry and writing it, we participants read, discuss, and even recite the work of several poets whose examples might lead us to a further honing of our craft.