WGA Late Summer Writers' Retreat 2025
The Retreat takes place from Thursday, August 28th to Sunday, August 31st. The full schedule is now available below.
Session details are also available below and WGA staff are available to answer questions in person.
For information on previous registration and fees, please scroll to the end of the page.
Schedule
| Thursday, August 28 | Friday, August 29 | Saturday, August 30 | Sunday, August 31 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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8:30 AM |
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Breakfast |
Breakfast |
Breakfast |
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10:30 AM |
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Self-Directed Writing Time |
Workshop: Premee Mohamed |
Self-Directed Writing Time |
|
12:30 PM |
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Lunch |
Lunch |
Lunch |
|
1:30 PM |
|
|
|
Group Photo |
|
2:00 PM |
|
Freefall Writing Session |
Workshop: Jenna Butler |
Check-Out |
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4:00 PM |
Day 1 Check-In |
Day 2 Check-In |
|
|
|
5:30 PM |
Dinner |
Dinner |
Dinner |
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7:00 PM |
Literary Trivia |
Open Mic Night #1 |
Open Mic Night #2 |
|
Weekend Events
Thursday, August 28th
Alberta-Themed Literary Trivia
7:00 PM
In the dining hall
Hosted by Ashley Frerichs from the WGA.
Stick around the dining hall after dinner for a chance to get to know each other and test your Alberta literary knowledge with a fun trivia game! Prizes for the winning team are bragging rights and books.
Friday, August 29th
Self-Directed Writing Time
Friday morning.
Friday morning is for self-directed writing time. Make yourself comfortable on the grounds and enjoy some focused time to write. Or not! The time is yours.
Freefall Writing Session
2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
In the dining hall
Feeling stuck? In need of a creative boost? Want to generate a new story idea? Join Ashley Frerichs in the dining hall for a Freefall writing session. In this session we’ll explore the Freefall method, which involves writing without stopping; just keep the pen (or fingers) moving! The format will involve a warm-up exercise followed by prompt and response, with prompts gathered from the group collaboratively. Each prompt will be followed by 15-minutes of freefall writing with the option to share before moving on to the next one. Come ready to write and connect with fellow wordsmiths!
Open Mic Night #1
7:00 PM
In the dining hall
Opportunity to share your work with the group and hear what your fellow writers are working on! Hosted by Ashley Frerichs from the WGA. Please sign up here. Be sure to choose the night you wish to read (Saturday or Sunday.)
Saturday, August 30th
Workshop: Outline Like You’ve Never Outlined Before with Premee Mohamed
10:30 AM to 12:00 PM
In the conference room, main building
Join award-winning author Premee Mohamed for a transformative workshop on novel outlining.
Are you tired of feeling constrained by traditional outlining methods? Whether you’re a pantser or a plotter, this workshop is designed to ignite your creativity and enhance your outlining process. Discover how to build a transparent and flexible outlining system tailored to your unique writing style. In this session, you’ll explore innovative approaches to outlining that will lead to faster, more joyful writing.
Writing the More-Than-Human World with Jenna Butler
2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
In the conference room, main building
How do we represent the more-than-human world in our written work? Do the land and water always appear in our stories as backdrops or as terrifying antagonists our human characters have to survive? What might happen if the land was a character with complex agency? In this writing workshop, we’ll draw from texts including Richard Powers’ The Overstory, C.J. Lavigne’s The Drowned Man’s Daughter, and the work of poets including Katherena Vermette and Joy Harjo as we explore the many diverse ways in which we can write the world around us.
Open Mic Night #2
7:00 PM
In the dining hall
Opportunity to share your work with the group and hear what fellow writers are working on! Hosted by Ashley Frerichs from the WGA. Please sign up here. Be sure to choose the night you wish to read.
Sunday, August 31st
Self-Directed Writing Time
Sunday morning
Make yourself comfortable on the grounds and enjoy some focused time to write. Or not! The time is yours.
Group Photo
1:30 PM
Outside the dining hall
Meet your fellow writers one more time before checkout to share and snap a group photo.
Registration is now closed.
Cost for two-night Stay (Friday to Sunday)
$600 for WGA members (or two payments of $300)
$700 for non-members (or two payments of $350)
Cost for three-night Stay (Thursday to Sunday)
$750 for WGA members (or two payments of $375)
$850 for non-members (or two payments of $425)
Cost includes private room accommodation–double and queen rooms available upon request–meals, and quality programming throughout the weekend.
Please join us late this summer as we return to the beautiful Sanctum Retreat Centre in Caroline for a weekend of craft development, creativity, and connection. We are so excited to announce two award-winning Authors in Residence: poet and essayist Jenna Butler and scientist and speculative fiction author Premee Mohamed!
Cancellation Policy
Any cancellations made on or before July 28, 2025, will receive a full refund minus a $50 administration fee. Cancellations made between July 29 – August 14, 2025, will receive a 50% refund minus a $50 administration fee. Refund requests made after August 14, 2025, may be considered on a case by case basis and are not guaranteed.
Refund requests must be made in writing to the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.
About the Authors in Residence
Dr. Jenna Butler (she/her) is an award-winning poet, essayist, and editor. She is the author of six collections of poetry and essays. Revery: A Year of Bees, essays about beekeeping, climate grief, and trauma recovery, was a finalist for the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award and a longlisted title for CBC Canada Reads. A retired professor of creative and environmental writing, Butler holds fellowships from the Yaddo Foundation (USA) and Studio Faire (France). She currently serves as the 2025 Writer in Residence at MacEwan University. Butler works on the land between a collaborative off-grid organic farm in northern Treaty 6 and the unceded traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples of Vancouver Island.
Premee Mohamed is a Nebula, World Fantasy, Ignyte, and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She has also been a finalist for the Hugo, Locus, British Fantasy, British Science Fiction, and Crawford awards. In 2024, she was the Edmonton Public Library writer-in-residence. Currently, she is an Assistant Editor at the short fiction audio venue Escape Pod. She is the author of the ‘Beneath the Rising’ series of novels as well as several novellas. Her short fiction has appeared in many venues and she can be found on her website at www.premeemohamed.com.
Blue Pencil Sessions
Note: Requests for Blue Pencil sessions (one-on-one consultations) with retreat facilitators are now closed.
Important. Please read:
When you register for the retreat, you will receive a notification email which will include details on how to apply for a Blue Pencil session with either Jenna Butler or Premee Mohammed.
Due to the limited availability of Blue Pencil sessions, we are unable to guarantee that all requests for a Blue Pencil session will be able to be fulfilled; however, we will do our best to accommodate as many requests as possible. In the event that the requests for sessions exceed the available spots, Blue Pencil sessions will be allocated by a lottery draw in order to make things as fair as possible. Once sessions have been allocated, you will receive the details for your Blue Pencil session or be notified if there were insufficient spots to accommodate your application.