Retreats@CasaAna
Creative Writing Retreats
Spend ten days focusing uninterruptedly on your writing. Programme directors: Mary-Jane Holmes and Anne Hunt.
Creative Writing Retreats
Spend ten productive days focusing uninterruptedly on your writing, with input from a resident mentor. Ideal if you are starting a new project, looking for professional guidance on your existing work, or editing your works in progress.
See the Guardian’s recent major feature on writing retreats at Casa Ana.
About the Creative Writing Retreats
At Casa Ana we run creative writing retreats several times a year, each lasting 10 nights. They are led by resident mentors, all of whom are published writers with years of teaching experience. They will give professional guidance on your project, whether it be a novel, short stories, poetry, flash fiction, screenwriting, memoir or a play.
Why choose Casa Ana?
You’ll have the luxury of spending ten days working uninterruptedly on your writing.
Inspiring surroundings, quiet corners, Spanish sunshine.
The company of up to 8 other writers from all over the world.
The mentors run group critiquing sessions and you can also sign up for individual mentoring.
You don’t have to cook! The Casa Ana chef prepares sumptuous meals. Full board is included in the price.
Help yourself to tea, coffee or a glass of wine at any time.
We make it easy for you to travel to Casa Ana via our minibus service from Malaga airport.
If you need a break from writing:
Book a therapeutic massage at the house.
In summer there’s a lovely swimming pool with a bar and rose garden, a 25 minute walk from Casa Ana.
There are long walks in the hills and shorter walks to the bar. We provide maps and directions.
Dates of retreats 2023 and 2024
28 October - 7 November with Mary-Jane Holmes
27 January - 6 February with Mary-Jane Holmes
27 April - 7 May with Ayisha Malik
20 - 30 July with Mary-Jane Holmes
2 - 12 November with Mary-Jane Holmes
Prices 2024
All rooms are priced for single occupancy and private bathrooms.
All rooms have a writing table.
Single room: €1475
Standard size double or twin room: €1675
Large room with double bed: €1775
Garden Room (large double): €1875
NB: €50 per week off the price of a single or standard room if you are willing to share a bathroom with one other writer.
Prices include: Room, 10 breakfasts, 9 lunches, tea and coffee, 7 dinners, three group reading and feedback sessions, three afternoon prompt sessions, use of Casa Ana facilities including the guest kitchen, WIFI, garden and terraces.
Prices do not include: One-to-one mentoring sessions, 3 dinners, flights, airport transfers, drinks apart from tea and coffee
SPECIAL OFFERS 2023 and 2024
Returning Writers: €100 off the full price (bookable at any time subject to availability).
Places are strictly limited so early booking is strongly advised.
To book one of these retreats download and send us an Application Form. We will reply to you within 48 hours. Please also download our Writing Retreat faqs
“It was a wonderful, wonderful fortnight. For me, a perfect balance of quiet time to write, group and one-to-one sessions for feedback and to help me shape my writing, and delightful, sociable evenings with a great bunch of fellow writers. Casa Ana is comfortable, spacious and full of peace, flowers and birdsong. ”
The Mentors 2023/4
Mary-Jane Holmes
A Forward Prize nominee and Hawthornden Fellow, Mary-Jane won the Live Canon Poetry Pamphlet Prize 2020, Bath Novella-in-Flash Prize 2020, the Bridport Poetry prize, Mslexia Flash prize as well as the Bedford Poetry competition. She has also been shortlisted for the Beverley International Prize for Literature and longlisted for the UK National Poetry Prize. Mary-Jane’s poetry collection Heliotrope with Matches and Magnifying Glass is published by Pindrop Press. Her award-winning pamphlet Dihedral is published by Live Canon Press and her novella Don’t Tell the Bees, is published by Ad Hoc Fiction. Her Lockdown poem ‘Letter from Baldersdale’ joins 20 other poems in the National Poetry Archive on their 20th anniversary. Her collection of Flash Fiction 'Set a Crow to Catch a Crow will be published by V press in 2021.
Since 2009 she has served as chief editor of Fish Publishing Ireland, an organisation committed to supporting emerging writers. She also is an editorial consultant at The Well Review, an international poetry journal based in Cork, Ireland.
Ayisha Malik
Ayisha Malik is author of the critically acclaimed novels, Sofia Khan is Not Obliged, The Other Half of Happiness, This Green and Pleasant Land and The Movement. She was a WHSmith Fresh Talent Pick and Sofia Khan was a London CityReads choice. Her contributions have included, A Change is Gonna Come, A Matchmade in Heaven and the Sunday Times bestselling Conversations in Love.She has written a re-telling of Jane Austen's Mansfield Part – part of Hachette's Awesomely Austen children's series – and a children’s book Seven Sisters. Ayisha is winner of The Diversity Book Awards and has been shortlisted for the Asian Women of Achievement Award, Marie Claire's Future Shapers Awards and h100's Awards for Publishing and Writing. Sofia Khan is not Obliged and The Movement are optioned for television.
Ayisha is a part of the Professional Writing Academy team and teaches fiction courses for Faber Academy and Curtis Brown Creative.
Catherine McNamara
Catherine McNamara is a short story and flash fiction writer, novelist, writing mentor and teacher, and UK Flash Fiction editor at Litro Magazine. Her flash/short fiction collection Love Stories for Hectic People won Best Short Story Collection the Saboteur Awards 2021 (UK). Her short story collection The Cartography of Others was praised by Hilary Mantel, finalist in the People’s Book Prize (UK), and won the Eyelands International Fiction Prize (Greece). Pelt and Other Stories was semi-finalist in the Hudson Prize and longlisted for the Frank O’Connor Award.
Catherine McNamara grew up in Sydney, ran away to Paris to write and ended up in West Africa co-running a bar, working in Mogadishu and Milan along the way. Catherine hikes, grows cherries and lives in a farmhouse north-eastern Italy.
“There was something really magical about Casa Ana and the collective energy to write really helped me break though some big blocks in my project.”
Accommodation and Food
Casa Ana is known for its stylish and comfortable accommodation, fabulous cooking and stunning views of the Trevelez river gorge and the mountains beyond.
“Casa Ana is the perfect base, set in a remote village. The staff were great, food outstanding made with lots of fresh local produce and the surrounding area very picturesque. ”
The House
Staying at Casa Ana is like staying at a private house, simple, comfortable and welcoming. A place where you can feel at home.
The old Alpujarra-style buildings are arranged around a Moorish courtyard garden, planted with wisteria and roses. A few steps through the garden take you to the terraces with breathtaking views along the valley and into the mountains.
In the bedrooms we’ve kept the original chestnut beams with white walls and terracotta floors, comfortable beds, quality linens and a scattering of rugs.
The bathrooms are modern with rain showers, huge mirrors and hand-made tiles inspired by the Moorish designs of the Alhambra. A large sitting room gives onto a shady terrace with superb mountain views.
The Architect-designed dining room and kitchen are open plan and welcoming, giving onto a secluded south-facing terrace. For winter warmth there is underfloor central heating throughout (even in the bathrooms) and a fireplace in the sitting room.
“Casa Ana is a perfect place to bring a small group, especially for walking, writing, or personal development – you can have the place to yourselves. The mix of indoor and outdoor spaces provides a conducive and pleasing environment for this kind of activity. If you bring a group of 6 or more, you can opt to have lunches and dinners included, as we did, and I highly recommend this.”
The Garden
Casa Ana was made for outdoor living. Everywhere rooms open onto the Moorish garden, the courtyard or the terraces.
There are big shady pergolas where you can relax with a glass of wine, or a cup of coffee and a good book and secluded sunny corners where you can soak up the Andalucian sun and do nothing at all. At night you can sit out, gaze at the stars and watch the moonrise over the mountains.
Everywhere there are panoramic views, the scent of jasmine and orange blossom, and maybe the sound of goatbells or a nightingale or the river far below.
It’s what makes Casa Ana special.
“The Casa itself is beautiful, and has been lovingly and sympathetically restored... Anne and the staff couldn’t possibly be any friendlier. The surroundings are also stunning.”