THE SAN GINESE RESIDENCY & Retreat 2025

Spend one or two weeks in the beautiful Tuscan Countryside writing, painting, sharing meals with other artists and writers, and wandering the byways of the Via Francigena ancient pilgrim’s road to Rome.

The 2025 San Ginese Artist/Writer Retreats are open for registration. We are offering two self-directed residency weeks in September and a women-only creativity uplift session in June.

This very intimate retreat includes only 5 individual artist/writer/creatives per week. Each resident artist/writer/creator has a private room with its own bath and continental breakfast prepared by the hosts. There are daily excursion options at no extra charge organized in the area to nourish imagination, not fill time at no extra charge. For more details or questions please email me.

2025 Dates

June 8-21 Creativity Uplift (2 weeks) - A guided creative reset with gentle daily workshops, shared walks, and prompts to help you reconnect to your practice. Priority is given to participants booking the full two weeks. One-week applicants will be waitlisted until April 2025. Art and writing supplies for daily projects provided at no extra cost.

• August 31–September 6

• September 7–13

You may come for one week or stay for both of these self-directed residencies. If booking two weeks, the cost includes the additional Saturday night between sessions at no costso long as space is available in both weeks. The extra Saturday night is included at no extra price.

HOW DOES THE RESIDENCY RETREAT WORK?

Early in the residency (Sunday or Monday), we will talk through everyone’s needs and expectations and figure out how to organize and coordinate activities in support of the experience.

For artists and anyone interested drawing inspiration the landscape, we will take long daily walks in different directions weather permitting. There is a nearby variant of the Via Francigena (a pilgrim road to Rome that starts in Canterbury similar to the better-known Camino di Santiago in Spain.) that passes through the countryside nearby.  For September participants, the fields of sunflowers beckon to be photographed and painted..

Meals are shared and often prepared together in the locanda kitchen, where the meals offer a chance for everyone to process the work they are doing, share it with other artists, and plan for the next phase of creation.

If folks want to get away once or twice, we will visit nearby Lucca with its walkable ancient walls, or the storied 600-year-old Witch’s Oak or stroll under the towering aqueduct that traverses the region. These aren’t guided tours—they’re invitations. You choose what’s useful for your imagination.

Cost

The full price for the two-week residency is $1600. Each one-week residency is $880 until April 1, 2025 when the price increases by roughly 10% to $950 and $1750.

The residency fee includes:

• Accommodation at the Locanda San Ginese outside Lucca in Tuscany.

• Continental breakfast every day

• Pick up and drop off to and from either the airport (Pisa) or train station (Lucca or Viareggio).

• Welcome pizza provided at the popular Pizza e Fichi restaurant on Sunday - gluten free option available

• Grocery shopping trips as needed

• Full use of the locanda kitchen

• Local excursions depending on weather and participant interest could include visits to the walled city of Lucca, the Via Francigena, the Witch’s Oak, and other points of artistic interest.

PAYMENTS SCHEDULE

Reservations are made in the order that the deposit of $200 (fully refundable until February 1, 2025) is received. If you wish to attend, contact me and I will send you a PayPal invoice. Once you have paid the deposit, the space is reserved for you.

1st payment: $400 is due on April 1. You will receive an invoice from PayPal payable on receipt.

2nd payment: The balance is due 30 days before the start of your residency.

Email me for further details and with any questions you may have. If you have selected the dates you wish to attend, let me know the email address where I should send the PayPal deposit invoice.

For more information for questions or additional details contact me.

 Workshops offered in

•SCREENWRITING

The beauty of a screenplay is that you don't have to explain anything. You keep the rules of the game as back story in your head, and then you play with abandon. 

•PLAYWRITING

The playwright, unlike the screenwriter, controls time. And in comedy, timing is everything.

•FICTION

Plot is the means but character is the purpose. Don't get them reversed or nobody will care about your story, no matter how well-crafted.

NOTE: If you want to know my bona fides,  I teach classes for areas in which I have won awards. Not that being able to write is the same thing as to be able to teach. But I've also received multiple teaching awards. 

Past bookings include:

•     Olympic College, Bremerton, WA

•     City of Bremerton, WA

•     19 Tory Street, Wellington, NZ

•     Borrego Springs Film Festival, Borrego Springs, CA

•     Greater Los Angeles Association of Legal Administrators, Los Angeles, CA

•     Broad Humor Film Festival, Venice Beach, CA

•     WisCon, Madison, WI

•     George Washington University, Washington, DC

•     Kyobo Bookstores, Seoul, South Korea

•     Donna Discover, Lucca, Italy

Looking for someone to create a custom workshop? 

Laughter from Tears

I was 28 and heartbroken. I lamented to my friend, Roberta, that I would miss his sense of humor, how he made me laugh. I sighed over the sad reality that I was not funny at all. Roberta started crowing one of those high, giddy arpeggios you hear when someone is tickled to the bone. She turned to me and said, "Susan, you are the funniest people I know."  This surprised me no end. I thought I was intellectual, serious, and a bit on the drippy, sentimental side. Telling Roberta this only made her laugh louder. 

Until that day, it hadn't occurred to me that I might be funny, even though I had toured as a clown in a small circus. I had been a silent, sad clown, after all. And there I was, making those same sad clown eyes at Roberta while she laughed with glee. I have tried to live up to that day, to transform my ponderous writing into farce. It turns out they were not so far apart. I slowly found my voice, and it was cranky, contrarian, and unapologetic. However, the greatest benefit of this revelation has not been in my writing but in my life. I laugh a lot these days, regardless of relationship status.