I haven’t mentioned this year’s Writing Excuses retreat (September 17th–24th) very much, but I thought I’d drop a note about the impending price rise. Due the the cruise line’s requirements, May 31st is the last day to register at the current rate, and we hear it will go up quite significantly in June.

A few years ago, the Writing Excuses cohosts and I started holding the week-long Out of Excuses Writing Workshop and Retreat, which includes workshop and instruction time from Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and me, as well as time to just sit down and write with (hopefully) few distractions. The retreat had a couple successful years in Chattanooga, and then last year’s retreat was moved to a cruise ship in the Caribbean.

The cruise version of the retreat proved to be very popular, and we arranged for additional writing instructors to come along. This year we’ll be joined as instructors by writers and publishing professionals Claudia Gray, DongWon Song, Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes, Desiree Burch, Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damian Thomoas, and Navah Wolfe—in addition to Mary, Dan, Howard, and me. You can see a lot more details about the retreat cruise here.

For all the writers out there interested in attending, I look forward to seeing you in September!