As poet Robert Burns knew, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

It is with that sentiment that we sadly announce the cancelation of the 2020 Priory Writers’ Retreat. We’d planned for most every contingency, but we hadn’t planned for this. Why did we cancel the retreat? Very simply, because our participants’ health remains our top priority.

Allow me to take a moment to thank our amazing writers-in-residence, Nickolas Butler, Tessa Fontaine, Peter Geye and Kimberly Blaeser, all of whom made travel arrangements, planned courses, engaged in interviews, and gave their all to this event. It is our great hope that they’ll accept our invitation to return some future summer, and ideally summer 2021!

Allow me to also thank the retreat’s many applicants. Oh, how we wish we could spend this summer with you. Please, pretty please, try us again next summer.

While it would be easy to allow such a blow to demoralize us, that’s not really our way. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Guild has responded by way of a series of proactive measures to ensure that our members remain well supported, at least virtually. Much of the credit belongs to our advisory board, whose members recognized the many ways in which we might be part of the solution, at least in terms of local culture.

To this end, in late March Barstow & Grand announced free submissions through the end of their submission period on April 30.
Additionally, the Guild has invested in local writing-related opportunities, specifically joining Volume One’s Reader Membership Program at the partner level. In this way, we can begin to give back to a publication that has fostered countless writers over the years.
We also commissioned Elizabeth de Cleyre to write “Literary Citizenship in the Time of Coronavirus: Pragmatic Ways To Support Writers”, a wonderfully inclusive piece on the many, many ways we can support one another during this difficult time.
And last but not least, for the past month we’ve been busily curating our “Hope Is The Thing” Project—an attempt to collect submissions of 500 words or less from writers across the state on the subject of hope. We have been absolutely astounded by the depth and breadth of these submissions, nearly 50 of which we’ve already published, with more coming out daily. The goal here isn’t simply to read about hope, but to allow writers the chance to write about it, too.

“Throughout June, our Priory writers-in-residence (Nickolas Butler! Tessa Fontaine! Peter Geye! Kimberly Blaeser!) will all give featured “craft chats” with lively participation from you! ”

And finally, today we’re pleased to announce yet another initiative to tide us over until we can all meet again: “Craft Chats”! Throughout June, our Priory writers-in-residence (Nickolas Butler! Tessa Fontaine! Peter Geye! Kimberly Blaeser!) will all give featured “craft chats” with lively participation from you! Join us on Facebook Live for four evenings of fun and literary conversations with some of the best and most generous writers we know. These Craft Chats will be offered FREE. If you would like to donate to help us offset our presenter costs, we sure would welcome your generosity!

On that note, for those of you willing to become sustaining members, we’re glad to offer you a very special gift! We happen to have a whole lot of unused Priory Writers’ Retreat mugs sitting in boxes. Rather than have them gathering dust, we’d prefer to give them to you! If you become a sustaining member, drop us a note and we’ll get a mug in the mail as soon as social distancing allows! We’ll even be helping the US Postal Service in the process!

As always, thanks for your generosity, your humility, and your humanity.

Yours,

-BJ Hollars