The Art of Writing,

a writers retreat in the Casentino Mountains of Tuscany

If you need help with your writing, join our workshop from Sunday 9th to Saturday 15th June 2013 

The workshops and lectures are geared to both first time and established writers. Conducted by two successful authors Lisa Clifford and James Friel  , their classes will offer valuable information and networking opportunities and enable you to concentrate on how to get your work into a condition to be published.

Our workshops combine lectures from guest speakers – providing you with literary interaction with several published authors.  There will also be time for relaxation by the beautiful swimming pool or discovery and solitude from a walk in the nearby woods.

However, you will be expected to work intensively, spending the morning in lectures, writing in the afternoon, gaining feedback  from your tutors and through interaction with your group.

Please be aware   –  although we expect you to relax and have some fun  The Art of Writing workshop is not a working vacation, in which you will have time for retail therapy trips into Florence – so  if you need time for shopping please  book a second week staying in the City itself!  

The Concept of the workshop  is to aid you to advance own project.  Our goal is that you leave with a sense of accomplishment and give you the tools you need  to complete any work that you are currently working on.

We limit the class size to 15 people – there are 11 private apartments at Il Borgo a Caiano– all complete with kitchen, bathroom and private worktables inside and out – plus Free WiFi.

In addition to talks and lectures we will give you  the solitude you need to concentrate on your work,  as well as the stimulus of sharing your experience with other writers.

All this combined with talks from other guest writers and  any attention and feedback you may need to encourage the creative process.

There will be two afternoons with recreational activities in this unique part of Tuscany , including learning how to make pecorino cheeses at a nearby Agriturismo venue, (see below) plus , naturally , ample opportunity to take stimulus from the beautiful local scenery.

The daily workshops will be held in the beautiful Tuscan Valle del Casentino – known as “Il Luogo delle emozioni “- the seat of emotions – an unique part of Tuscany still filled with the silence and  peace of timeless places filled with the fragrances and tastes of an ancient culture.

About your Tutors

Lisa Clifford 

Lisa Clifford grew up in Sydney. She moved to Italy when she was sixteen years old and returned to Australia after winning a scholarship to the Australian, Film, Television and Radio School. Following a career in journalism that includes reporting for 2GB, Mix FM and Channel 10 news, Lisa was associate producer of the Channel 10 Late News. Throughout her career, she continued to travel to Italy, corresponding for 2UE, the ABC’s Radio National and the Voice of America News Service. Lisa contributes opinion pieces, guides and lifestyle articles on Italy to The Australian, The Australian Financial review, Gourmet Traveler and a range of other magazines and newspapers.

Lisa is the author of Walking Sydney and The Promise – an Italian Romance and Death in the Mountains – all of which can be purchased from amazon on the attached links.

Lisa lives in Florence with her husband and two children. She has a very positive attitude to life as is displayed her recent radio broadcast with Karen Swain on Accentuate the Positive, which can be found by following the highlighted link to her website.

In 2009, Lisa was named the winner of the Australian Victorian Premier’s Grollo Ruzzene Foundation Prize for Writing about Italians in Australia.

James (Jim) Friel

Novelist James Friel‘s most recent novel, The Posthumous Affair, was published in the US in 2012.   His other novels includeThe Higher Realm, Left of North, Taking the Veil and Careless Talk.

James is Programme Leader for the MA in Writing at the Centre for Writing, Liverpool John Moores University. He also tutors regularly for both the Arvon Foundation and at Ty Newydd which is where he mentored Lisa Clifford and helped her develop her own career.

In his latest novel  The Posthumous Affair, James defends the value and virtues of the single life against the widespread cultural view that being in a couple is a superior state of being.

The Posthumous Affair by James Friel, (Tupelo Press) ‘…a devastating and illuminating exploration of love and grief, opens in late nineteenth-century New York then travels to a Venice that is mysterious, decaying, and gloomily beautiful… All the way through, the novel is so lucid, and reveals such deep understanding of the emotions, that it presents to us an astonishing new form of erotic love.’
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Posthumous-Affair-James-Friel

Programme Dates – Sunday June 9th through to Saturday June 15th

Prices and accommodation

For full information on accommodation and pricing please check The Art of Writing website on www.the-art-of-writing.com