PHOTOS TO GO WITH MAYAPPLE BLOG

 

The Villetta Inn in Woodstock

on Upper Byrdcliffe Road

  This is the porch at the Inn where our workshop group met - a beautiful place
to read beautiful words.

 

This is my workshop group - from left to right - Jessica, Leslie and I

MAYAPPLE WRITERS' RETREAT

A MANUSCRIPT WORKSHOP

IN THE CATSKILLS

 

                        MAYAPPLE WRITERS’ RETREAT IN WOODSTOCK, NY

 

 

This was my 9^th year attending the Mayapple retreat.  For the last three years I’ve been

working with a group on critiquing manuscripts.  I’ve drifted past the days of workshopping one poem at a time so this retreat is perfect for me. 

 

The workshoppers meet at the Villetta Inn at the Byrdcliffe Conference Center – an old lodge

on a mountain above Woodstock.  There are no superstars here and no one is treated like   a student.   Those attending are peers, selected because of their experience and publishing background.  They come from all over:  Vincent Cooper from St. Thomas,  VI; Patty McMillen, Oak Park, IL; Rachel Coonce, Washington DC; Jessica deKoninck, Montclair, NJ, Zara Raab, Berkley, CA; Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Eureka Springs, AR: Nola Garrett, Pittsburgh, PA; Diane Lockward, West Caldwell, NJ; Shannon Frystak, Bethlehem, PA.  And a smattering of upstate New Yorkers: Leslie Gerber, Woodstock; Joyce Kessel, Hamburg; Robert McDonough and Maril Nowak, both of Branchport; Gary Leising, Utica; Roberta Gould, West Hurley; Judith Lechner, Saugeties.

 

My manuscript group this year included  Jessica de Konbinck and Leslie Gerber.  We sent each other our manuscripts the week before arrival and had time to go over them and make comments. We spent a day or more going over each manuscript, mostly discussing arrangement, sectioning, titling, as well as going over each poem and deciding if it fit where it was or should be moved. We made suggestions about weak poems and tried to arrange it so that the strongest poems led off a section.

 These sessions have been effective for me because I live in a small town and don’t have a workshopping group.  The first manuscript I worked on was published almost on the first send.  Wow.  I thought this was going to be the way of all things.  Not.  The second years’ manuscript is still floating around from contest to contest.  This years’ manuscript is typo free, neatened up

and ready to go.  We’ll see.

 There are readings every night and four  poets share their work with audiences from the area and fellow workshoppers.  Communal meals prepared in the big open kitchen are a prelude to the readings.    

Afternoons are for hiking on the many trails in the area, serious shopping in downtown Woodstock (all the boutique shops you can imagine) or lunching in one of the many restaurants.

 Judith Kerman began the retreat when she couldn’t find a workshop where she wasn’t treated

like a student.  She established a “comfortable, egalitarian atmosphere” for writers. 
A profitable (well, intellectually profitable) way to spend a week among like minds.