Elevate your writing at the Sawtooth Writing Retreat
Each day, we invite you to attend workshops, talks, share writing at an open mic, view the night sky through professional telescopes, enjoy the camaraderie of fellow writers around a bonfire, all with the goal of providing participants with the solitude and environment to delve deep into new ideas and writing techniques. Designed for adults who wish to elevate their writing skills and connect with a community of serious writers, this 5-day retreat provides instruction from award-winning authors.
This is a retreat for all writers. For dreamers of sentences, for hopers of ideas, for the subtle storytellers and the powerful prose slingers. This is a retreat for would-be, wanna-be, have-been, still-are, crafters of words, poems, memoirs, novels, or really great Christmas letters. This is a retreat for the writer seeking community, guidance, craft, and support. This is a retreat for the creative who knows that space, nourishment, and nature are the elixir of inspiration.
The Nuts and Bolts
The Sawtooth Writing Retreat is all about “getting away” and offering writers the opportunity to focus solely on their creative energies and pursuit of writing. We appreciate the way the rustic setting of the Retreat (think childhood camp) in the mountains of Idaho allows the mind the freedom to wander and discover, as well as connect with the natural landscape. Connection to surroundings is integral to any good writing, no matter the genre.
The workshop structure is designed to allow for extensive engagement with the craft of writing, while also allowing freedom to explore what best fits the needs of each writer. We offer eight dynamic workshops on different topics, evening talks and stargazing, opportunities for sharing work, and guided—or unguided—writing time. We invite you to custom-design your ideal retreat—pick and choose from a menu of workshops and other events, and also set aside blocks of uninterrupted time to think and write or hike and reflect in a beautiful natural setting conducive to reflection.
We value socializing, too, through communal meals and hanging out with other writers of various backgrounds and interests away from the constraints and responsibilities of our everyday lives. Because sometimes what a writer needs most is other writers.
Watch
Closed captions are available and a text transcript is provided on this page.
Video Transcript: Sawtooth Writing Retreat
Steve Dent: The Hemingway Center at Boise State University is hosting the Sawtooth Writing Retreat. I’m your Idaho Backroads neighborhood reporter, Steve Dent, and this is an area where Ernest Hemingway found solitude, peace, and inspiration through the dark skies and the magic of the mornings.
Participant 1: We heard elk bugling while we were sitting out eating lunch our first day here, and just being able to see the aspen trees starting to turn. So, being able to just be here in a cabin on-site and, like, roll out of bed in the morning and watch the sunrise, sit and hear the aspen trees quaking—I can write so much about the quaking of aspen leaves in the sun.
Participant 2: What do I see, smell, hear, feel, taste?
Steve: The Sawtooth Writing Retreat invites writers out to the woods north of Ketchum, where they get classes and instruction from Paul Bogart and Kim Cross. Again, looking for those things to call them fact.
Participant 3: I think Kim and Paul are really great. So they’re both, um, professional writing teachers, you know, at university level, both, uh, with multiple publications, different perspectives that are really great to hear.
Steve: While we were there, Kim and Paul did a lesson where the Central Idaho 4-H Camp caretaker, Tom, taught a lesson on chopping wood. For the students, it provided an opportunity
(Participant:—are you here year-round? Tom: I’d like to be—)
Steve: to build a character and journal a scene as it unfolded in front of them.
Participant 1: We have breakout writing sessions. I’m hoping this year to spend some time, honestly, I—I sit on a stump in one of the fields and I’ve been working on editing some of my pieces. So it’s a bit of a mix of meeting new fellow writers, uh, learning from them, learning from Kim and Paul, uh, eating some lovely, fantastic food.
Steve: Don Brockett helped write the dark sky application for this area while earning a master’s degree at Boise State University. Don finds it easier to write away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
Participant 3: I love the tie to Hemingway, the Hemingway Center, Boise State, the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve, Ketchum. I think it’s a really beautiful time. I’ve had the pleasure of, you know, living in this area, living in Paris where Hemingway also lived. I haven’t done the Keys or Cuba yet, but I think he was onto something in terms of really sustaining locations for, uh, writerly life.
Steve: This marks the second year Boise State has hosted the Sawtooth Writing Retreat, and it also marks the second year Annie Ferman made the trip from British Columbia.
Participants: Captain America log… pull for the retreat.
Participant 1: Yeah, I’m so grateful for Boise State University for putting this together, man. I mean, I was here last year and it was so fantastic that I came back for a second year. And I love that Boise State University is putting this on and, you know, inviting folks from the broader community as well.
Steve: And for more information or opportunities like the Sawtooth Writing Retreat, you can check out the Hemingway Center on the campus of Boise State University. I’m your Idaho Backroads neighborhood reporter, Steve Dent, for Idaho News.
Watch
Closed captions are available and a text transcript is provided on this page.
