Write, Relax, and Renew: A Creative Weekend in Cape May

Join a welcoming and restorative experience to help you connect with your creativity and enjoy meaningful time with others.

Set against the coastal charm of Cape May, New Jersey, this weekend retreat provides room to breathe, reflect, and explore your ideas in an unhurried, supportive setting.

The retreat includes guidance and insight from featured guests Lauren Grodstein, author of several books and director of the Rutgers-Camden MFA Program in Creative Writing; Tom McAllister, author of a book of essays, two novels, and a memoir, and professor in the Rutgers-Camden MFA Program in Creative Writing; Ellen Malenas Ledoux, author of Laboring Mothers: Reproducing Women and Work in the Eighteenth Century and professor int he English and Communication Department at Rutgers-Camden; and Laurie Frankel, New York Times-bestselling author of five novels as well as pieces in The New York Times, The Guardian, People Magazine, and other publications.

Cost: $800 per attendee – register for $750 by August 31 using the code EARLYBIRD50

The registration price includes your room at the Inn of Cape May, instructional and generative workshops on Saturday and Sunday, a provided dinner at the Inn on Saturday as well as breakfast and lunch Sunday (lunch Saturday is on your own in Cape May), and activities geared toward relaxation and restoration.

Spaces fill up fast, and we’d love to see you there!

Featuring

Lauren Grodstein

Lauren Grodstein is the author of The New York Times-bestselling A Friend of the Family, The Washington Post Book of the Year The Explanation for Everything, Our Short History, the Read with Jenna Today Show pick We Must Not Think of Ourselves, and most recently, A Dog in Georgia. Her articles, essays, and reviews have been included in Post Road, The New York Times, Columbia, and other publications, and her work has been widely anthologized. She directs the MFA Program at Rutgers-Camden.

Tom McAllister

Tom McAllister is the author of a book of essays, It All Felt Impossible, the novels How to Be Safe and The Young Widower’s Handbook, as well as the memoir Bury Me in My Jersey. How to Be Safe received starred reviews in Library Journal, Kirkus, and Booklist. His short fiction and essays have been published widely, and have most recently appeared in The Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Sun, Hobart, The Rumpus, Buzzfeed, The Millions, The Collagist, The Washington Post, and Bridge Eight. He is co-host of the weekly podcast Book Fight!, and nonfiction editor at the literary magazine and small press Barrelhouse. His book of essays, It All Felt Impossible, is forthcoming from Rose Metal Press this year. He lives in New Jersey.

Ellen Malenas Ledoux

Ellen Malenas Ledoux is a Professor in the English and Communication Department at Rutgers University-Camden. Her research focuses on transatlantic literature of the eighteenth century. She is the author of two books: Laboring Mothers: Reproducing Women and Work in the Eighteenth Century (University of Virginia Press, forthcoming 2023) and Social Reform in Gothic Writing: Fantastic Forms of Change, 1764-1834 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). She has published widely on women’s cultural history and Gothic writing in journals such as Studies in Romanticism, The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, Women’s Writing, and Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture.

With Special Guest

Laurie Frankel

Laurie Frankel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of five (going on six) novels. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Publisher’s Weekly, People Magazine, Lit Hub, The Sydney Morning Herald, and other publications. She is the recipient of the Washington State Book Award and the Endeavor Award. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and been optioned for film and TV. A former college professor, she now writes full-time in Seattle, Washington where she lives with her family and makes good soup.