2018/19 Programme :  

1. Writing Workshops, Weekends and Retreats  with Sixpens.com – Fiona Keane and Fin Keegan

•          Writing Week-ends as below
•          Individual Week long (or more) Writing Retreats
•          can be  customised with Fiona’s feedback.
•          Bring your own Writing Group : We ll arrange one of our own Weekends with Fiona and Fin just for your group, at a date that suits you;  OR we can supply the venue and food, you organise your own workshops and leader.

2. ” A Room of one’s own…”

•  A space in which to start or continue your own writing project.
  • Bed and self service breakfast in the Main house,
  • Use of kitchen to self cater  by arrangement
  • Self-catering Writer’s Cabin ( wooden cottage by the stream)                                    ***********************************  

Holiday Vouchers Available – Great suggestion for family and                                       friends!

A Westport Weekend Writing Experience

       with Sixpens.com –

       Calender 2019

Summer     :    June 29th-30th  (2019)

Autumn     :    October 19th-20th 2019

 Organised weekend  writing retreats are time for you – an opportunity to devote a dedicated space to your writing in a peaceful, friendly environment, to be inspired, to fire your imagination and to work through the process of composing your work in manageable stages  led by Fiona and Fin with lots of support and encouragement  from them and the writing group.

Workshops facilitated by :  crafted exercises, stimulating reading /and or listening & intensive writing in an atmosphere that is convivial and supportive, yet  rigorous and productive;

~ Productive, intense, fun and highly rewarding
~ Roisin’s nourishing soups, stews and salads, as well as homemade bread and cakes spur us on…
~Readings, lively discussion and (optional!) celebration .

The Old Rectory Retreat will provide food, accommodation, peace and space for writers, both beginners and seasoned. You may continue work you have started or start to find your own voice.

Timeable

Friday  from 2 pm      Residents arrive .    Help yourself to soup and

sandwiches

Sat. 10.20 am -1.00.pm      Morning workshop

1.00pm-    2.30.pm              Lunch & Chat &  Walk or Rest

2.20- 5.00pm                          Afternoon Workshop

7.30 pm                                   Evening meal for residents. Can be booked separately by

                                                  non residents

Sun. 10.20am-1.30 pm      Morning Workshop

1.30pm                                   A Little Lunch to Celebrate

2.20- 5.00pm                          Afternoon Workshop

 

Cost:

Workshops (4) incl Lunch x 2                                               €200  (€180 early booking before Jan.                                                                                                               10th/May 10th)

(+Accommodation full board included Fri/Sat)                €315  (€295 early booking )

Stay Writer’s Cabin (meals included)                                 €350

 

Customise your Writing Retreat

Stay on at Old Rectory Retreat and continue your work. Many people find it very difficult to fit the writing that has come to be their passion into the hectic life style in which so many of us  find ourselves swimming nowadays. You might consider taking a few more days after the workshops are over in which to develop the work you have begun.

Fiona can be available to work one to one in the days following a Writing Weekend. Charges for this service are negotiated with Fiona herself.

The cost of each extra day’s  accommodation and self service breakfast with use of kitchen to prepare other meals is €45 per day.

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Our  Writing Workshops are led by the Sixpens team of Fin Keegan & Fiona Keane

Fiona Keane is a writer and teacher whose work has been performed in New York, Cleveland and Dublin. Her passion is to help people through their resistance and release their creativity.

Formerly a Reader for The New Yorker magazine, Fin Keegan’s latest play The Last of the Vegas recently appeared in the Las Vegas Fringe Festival. Other work has appeared on the BBC World Service and in the Dublin Review of Books. His weekly radio essay features on WRFM and online. Both workshop leaders hold Masters in Creative Writing from Columbia University in New York.

Fiona and Fin have been leading workshops at The Old Rectory Retreat in Westport for nine years now. Their style is to support, inspire and encourage; to provoke deeply felt responses and to encourage participants to investigate good writing through discussion and examination of well composed texts; to help writers find ways of moving forward. Their sessions are facilitated by crafted exercises, stimulating reading /and or listening & intensive writing in an atmosphere that is convivial and supportive, yet  rigorous and productive. Participants return again and again to be inspired to create words and worlds of which they hadn’t known they dreamed. Our groups are small and the atmosphere  is welcoming and inclusive.

 

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Important!

If you are interested in any of the Workshops listed above  but are unable to attend on the dates specified, please contact us as we will be arranging other dates. We can arrange workshop, weekends, week long retreats in response to request. If you would like to use The Old Rectory Retreat as a venue for your own workshop please contact us. We will be happy to facilitate if possible**