The Writer’s Retreat at Good Contrivance Farm is excited to announce the 2025 Workshop & Craft Talk lineup.This season’s events will feature Jane Friedman, publishing industry veteran and author of The Business of Being a Writer; Ross Gay, author of four books of poetry and winner of the 201 5 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; and Debra Spark, award-winning author of five novels. Jane Friedman’s Workshop: Marketing Before and After the Book Deal Saturday, May 10, 10 a.m. – 4p.m. (includes lunch). Get tickets now, before this sells out! Craft Talk: AI and Publishing: The Technology Is Here to Stay. So Now What? Saturday, May 17, 5 p.m. Seating is limited, so please register in advance. Jane’s talk will be followed by a reception and buffet dinner.If you’re the kind of writer who likes to ask, “What’s the single most important marketing activity I should focus on?” (because you don’t have time for anything else), this workshop is for you.You’ll learn key principles for using your website, email newsletter (or Substack), and a dash of social media to better reach and engage readers, both new and old. Plus we’ll consider offline or in-real-life opportunities to grow your readership through collaborations, partnerships, and literary citizenship.WORKSHOP TICKETSCRAFT TALK REGISTRATIONAbout Jane Friedman:Jane Friedman has spent 25 years working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer (The University of Chicago Press), received a starred review from Library Journal and is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. A second edition releases in spring 2025.As co-founder and editor of The Hot Sheet newsletter, she provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals. Her influence and insight earned her Publishing Commentator of the Year from Digital Book World in 2023, and her expertise regularly features in major media outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC.Ross Gay’s Writing Workshop: Playing at Poetry for All GenresSaturday, July 12 (SOLD OUT!) Craft Talk: Writing the Garden Saturday, July 17, 5 p.m. Seating is limited, so please register in advance. Ross’s talk will be followed by a reception and buffet dinner.Join us as New York Times bestselling essayist and poet Ross Gay discusses and wonders about “the garden” and offers some notes, queries, and a few questions that may help you open your writing to new growthCRAFT TALK REGISTRATIONAbout Ross Gay:Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. In addition to his poetry, Ross has released three collections of essays—The Book of Delights was released in 2019 and was a New York Times bestseller; Inciting Joy was released in 2022, and his newest collection, The Book of (More) Delights was released in September of 2023.Debra Spark’s Workshop: I Dare You: Three New Ways to Think About Short-Story WritingSaturday, August 9, 10 a.m. – 4p.m. (includes lunch). Get tickets now, before this sells out! Craft Talk: The Best Writing Advice and the Worst Saturday, August 16, 5 p.m. Seating is limited, so please register in advance. Debra’s talk will be followed by a reception and buffet dinner.Ever sit down to write a story and think, “Wow, I really have this great instigating action that I want to put down on the page, so I can then create some rising action, a climax, and a denouement.”  No, you did not.  And yet that is how fiction often gets talked about in beginning creative writing classes.  This workshop will (very) quickly review the conventional thinking on plot and then propose some new (and hopefully more inspiring) ways to start a story.This workshop will provide plenty of prompts for starting a new story or developing an existing piece (if you have one you want to bring but no pressure if you don’t).WORKSHOP TICKETSCRAFT TALK REGISTRATIONAbout Debra Spark:Debra Spark is the award-winning author of five novels, including the recent Discipline; two collections of short stories; and two books of essays on fiction writing, as well as editor/co-editor of two anthologies.Her book reviews, short fiction, articles, op-eds, and essays have appeared in Agni, American Scholar, AWP Writers’ Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Cincinnati Review, the Chicago Tribune, Epoch, Esquire, Five Points, Food and Wine, Harvard Review, Huffington Post, Maine Magazine, Narrative, New England Travel and Life, the New England Review, the New York Times, Ploughshares, salon.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, Yankee, and Yale Alumni Quarterly, among other places.About Good Contrivance Farm:Good Contrivance Farm is a 501 C-3 non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the preservation and restoration of small, historic farms in Maryland. Toward that end, our farm serves as a model of historic preservation and sustainable nurture. In bringing people to the farm, we avail ourselves of the opportunity to show visitors how beautiful and useful a restored historic farm can be.Good Contrivance Farm2015 Emory Rd., Reisterstown, MD 21136 ...read more read less