So, last year, the Writing Excuses gang put together this writing workshop and we held it on a cruise ship. Why? Because it turns out that when we were pricing venues this was the best deal. No, seriously. We’d been doing them at my parents’ house and people were staying at a Best Western a half mile away. For the same price as staying in a roadside motel, we could take them to the Caribbean AND all the food was included.
Yeah…The meeting to decide to do the cruise instead of Mom and Dad’s was really, really short.
What’s also great about it is that, previously, we had to cap it at 24 people. Last year, we had a 110 students. In order to keep the student/teacher ratio small, we bring guest instructors with us. This year, we’ve gone from 4 teachers to 10.
So in addition to Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Taylor, and me, you also get writers Steven Barnes, Desiree Burch, Tananarive Due, Claudia Gray, agent DongWon Song, and editors Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas, and Navah Wolfe.
We have lectures, critique sessions, small group breakouts, and writing exercises.
And it’s in the Caribbean. Bahamas, St. Maarten, and St. Thomas.
The other thing that we’re doing is we have a family track. One of the hardest things about being a writer is balancing your art and your family. We try to make that easier by having a family rate and also teaching classes like, “So…You Have a Writer in the Family.”
Oh… the ship we’re on? It has child care.
And it’s accessible. Which is the other reason we moved to the ship. My parents’ place? Built by my grandfather so it is seriously not handicap accessible.
The cruise is September 17-24. For more information, hop on over to the registration site.
…
Makes me want to take up writing. 🙂
I love this.
I can’t tell if the price per ticket is the fee for the room, or the fee for just one person. As the rooms are doubles and I’d be traveling alone, would I be sharing with someone?
The price is per person. You can either pay extra to have a private room, or we can help you find a roommmate among the other attendees of the workshop.
(If you scroll all the way down on the registration page, there’s an FAQ.)
This is such an unbelievably cool idea! It’s too bad I can’t justify it in my budget 🙁 On a slightly different note, I’ve been getting 2 copies of your updates email at the same address. Any way to stop that from happening?
Thanks!