International

Writing

Retreats

suspended until further notice

International Writing Retreats & Workshops

Many writers benefit from the fresh perspective that a foreign sky affords. Authors at Large (AAL) was designed for both established and emerging writers who love travel, who need time and space to write, and who want to engage with an international community of other writers. Our writing retreats and workshops attracted serious writers and we strive to create a conducive environment that is culturally diverse and intellectually stimulating. As we will be suspending operations by May 1, 2025, there will be no retreats scheduled for the immediate future.

Recent Retreats 2022-24

2024
In June this year, we hosted a lively literary week from June 2 to 9 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (Saigon) led by AAL co-founders Robin Hemley and Xu Xi. We held our program of private manuscript consultations and daily generative writing workshops at the Caravelle Hotel in District 1, right in the centre of the city. To learn more about what was offered, you can visit the webpage HERE.
2022 to 2023
Post Covid, we began live retreats again in May 2022 and held one in Thessaloniki, Greece. In 2023, our June retreat & literary week was at the historic The Arts House in the exciting city-state of Singapore. For the first time, we also featured exclusive sessions with two New York publishers & editors from international mainstream and indie presses who spoke to and met with participants. You can read about the Singapore program HERE.

Email aalauthors@gmail.com.

Testimonials

Not only did I figure out how to address some problems in a very pesky work-in-progress, but I also generated new work and came away with strategies for initiating more. . . . Plus, hot springs! Midnight sun! Fabulous coffee! Reading at a local poetry center! And how often will most of us get to hear traditional Icelandic chanting in our lives? You never know what awaits you at an AAL workshop—and that’s the charm.

- Susan (Canada) Iceland 2017

That everyone felt comfortable to read their work before their peers attests to the gentle, supportive and respectful atmosphere that Robin and Xu Xi had created, and everyone else had reinforced. This is especially so with those readings that were intensely personal, and deeply moving. It also speaks to everyone’s respect for their fellow writers that we were all there for all the readings, even when it was getting late after a long, hot day, good booze and a full stomach.

- Anjuli (Shanghai) Indonesia 2016

What I hadn't appreciated before I attended this week is how personally therapeutic creative writing can be... This has been both surprising and personally valuable and could only be achieved in the trusting atmosphere of the AAL group I was part of for the week. I'd highly recommend the AAL workshop experience for beginner writers like myself.

- Jane (Hong Kong) Thailand 2017

What really separates this program from the many others out there, is its demographics. This organization's mission isn't about choosing some exotic/elite locale to hold a workshop, but about truly building bridges across cultures and literatures. My small group of 6 included burgeoning writers from India, Spain, Hong Kong, Canada and the United States . . . Don’t walk but run, no fly, to one of their upcoming retreats.

- Marc (USA) Iceland 2017

Any anxieties for first-time participants faded with the comfortable, steady pace of this workshop. Congenial people not competing with each other for attention or preference made this a pleasurable experience.

- Diane (Australia) Indonesia 2017

I came away from the week with a lot of clarity on where my novel is heading plot-wise and with some deep insight into the kind of novel I wanted to write. This kind of insight only comes from a lot of time letting ideas and thoughts brew uninterrupted, which I struggle with in my daily life.

- Michaela (Singapore/Hamburg) Indonesia 2016

past retreats

In 2017, we held three international week-long retreats. The first was at the end of May in Siglufjordur, a historic fishing village in northern Iceland. Eleven writers participated in workshops led by Xu Xi (fiction) and Brenda Miller (nonfiction). In July, twelve writers joined us for a retreat in Hua Hin, a beach resort town on the southern coast of Thailand, location of the royal family’s summer palace. Madeleine Thien led the fiction group and Robin Hemley led a generative writing workshop in fiction & nonfiction. Xu Xi made a brief appearance and gave a salon on publishing. The following week, Robin Hemley returned to the private island of Telunas in Indonesia (site of our inaugural retreat in 2016) to hold our last summer retreat of 2017 with four writers for an intensive workshop week. And in fall we held our very first Urban Weekend Retreat in Hong Kong led by Xu Xi where 14 fiction & nonfiction writers gathered for an intensive workshop centered around writing craft using their own work as text for discussion and further generative exercises. We also had lunch/informal sessions on publishing & the business of writing.

In 2018, we held our annual retreat in Hua Hin, and Ira Sukrungruang, Chantelle Aimée Osman and Xu Xi led three workshops in nonfiction, genre fiction and fiction. There were salons each evening and some previous clients and several new writers joined us as well. We held a 2019 retreat with two workshops in fiction/genre fiction, co-led by Chantelle and Xu and one in nonfiction led by Ira. Robin Hemley joined us and that year we introduced private consultation sessions with our participants by Robin and Xu about their writing or publishing or other aspects of the writing life.

We had a wonderful retreat planned in 2020 in Luang Prabang, Laos, but due to the global pandemic, we replaced our live retreats with a series of online retreats & workshops instead. We’re happy to be hosting live retreats & workshops again!