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 now open for registration. We are offering four residency dates for the summer in June and September where you can come for one or two consecutive weeks.

Alert: Special Session Added -  June 15-21, 2025 - Social and Political Action Through The Arts Added

In response to the political and social chaos, we are offering one session for those who want to explore how their work as creatives artists can meet this moment and help change it for the better. 

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. More details on the RESIDENCY here page or by emailing me.

2025 Dates: June 8-14, June 15-21, August 31-September 6, and September 7-13. The week long residencies are 7 days/6 nights. You can book two weeks in September and pay the two-week price so long as space is available in both weeks.

You must place a $200 deposit to reserve a place.

WHAT IS THE SAN GINESE ARTIST/WRITER Retreat and RESIDENCY?

This very intimate residency includes only 4 individual artists/writer/creatives per week. Housed in the charming Locanda San Ginese, each resident artist/writer/creator has a private room with its own bath and continental breakfast prepared by the hosts. Local excursions, weather permitting, are arranged to support the residents’ interests.

A self-directed retreat, artists and writers come with the creative project they wish to work on. If it involves plein air painting, the owners and I will help you figure out where you can work and how to set up. If you need to be driven closer to the spot you want to paint, we will arrange it. We will also plan local excursions for inspiration weather permitting.

For the Special Session on Politics, Society and the Arts, participants should come prepared to engage with one another to question whether and what kind of role the arts in general and our own work in particular can play, to look for ways to make works that make a difference, and to challenge one another to rise to the moment through our work.

This very intimate residency includes only 4 individual artists/writer/creatives per week.

HOW DOES THE RESIDENCY WORK?

Early in the residency (Sunday or Monday), we will talk through everyone’s work plans 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. If, for example, the sunflowers are in bloom as they were this year, we will find a spot to photograph and/or paint them.

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, there are some possible outside excursions that the owners will take us on. These are not tourist excursions. There will be no guide. But a visit to nearby Lucca, with it’s ancient wall that you can walk or bike all the way around, or Pietrasanta, an artisan town in Carrara, or San Andrea di Compito, called the Village of Camellias, might provide real inspiration for some. A public beach is a little over an hour away, and so it could also be possible to go there for a visit. We would not be spending a whole day at the beach, as this is not really a tourism experience week, but I for one am a big fan of novel input for my imagination, and wanted that to be a part of this residency.

The full price for the two-week residency is $1600. Each one-week residency is $880.

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 artisan town of Pietrasanta, the Via Francigena, the Witch’s Oak, and other points of artistic interest.

PAYMENTS: 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 February 1. You will receive an invoice from PayPal in January payable on receipt.

2nd payment: The balance is due April 1, 2025.

Payment plan available on request. NOTE: If you cancel after February 1, but within 30 days of the start of your residency, you will be returned half of the deposit+payment(s) made.

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.