Retreats@CasaAna
Creative Writing Retreats in Andalucia

These retreats are designed to help you achieve success in your writing. You’ll find a welcoming house, inspiring views, award-winning mentors, the company of other writers, sunshine and amazing food. Be inspired to reach greater heights, whether you are a beginner, emerging or published writer. 

Each year we run four or five Casa Ana Creative Writing Retreats, each lasting ten nights. On retreat, you can be working on a novel, or short stories, poetry, a play, flash fiction or more. A resident mentor will be on hand with help and advice when you need it and you are welcome to participate in the group feedback sessions which the mentor will facilitate.  Your time is your own – when you need a break from writing there are inspiring walks into the hills or the local bar. Or a therapeutic massage. Or a glass of wine on the terrace in the company of other writers.

See The Guardian in-depth feature on Casa Ana retreats

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.

Your retreat at Casa Ana

• You’ll have the luxury of a week or two working uninterruptedly on your writing

• Inspiring mountain surroundings, quiet corners on the terrace, Spanish sunshine

• Your own room and writing table

• The company of other writers, from many countries

• Opportunities to read from your work in the supportive atmosphere of the group

• One-to-one sessions are available with the resident mentor

• You don’t have to cook! The Casa Ana chef prepares sumptuous meals. Full board is included in the price.

• 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

• Complementary tea, coffee and biscuits are available at all times. Or a glass of wine, or a cold beer, or chocolate….

Excursion to historic Alpujarran village

Half-way through the retreat you can head to one of the impossibly pretty local villages for a spot of shopping, people-watching and dinner at a local restaurant.

Writers agree: the food at Casa Ana is superb. And you don’t have to roll up your sleeves and cook!  At breakfast you can feast on produce typical of the Alpujarra – oranges from the garden, ripe tomatoes, rosemary honey, regional cheeses, serrano ham and local free-range eggs. In the evenings our cooks create superb 3-course dinners using fresh, seasonal ingredients, an alchemy of Spanish, Mediterranean and Moroccan flavours.

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.