Application

Applications for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry at the 2025 Spring Retreat are now open. Deadline: February 15, 2025.  

2025 Ossabaw Spring Writer’s Workshop and Retreat

Applications for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry at the 2025 Spring Retreat, March 14-19, are now open.  Application deadline February 15, 2025. Receive a $200 discount for applications prior to December 31, 2023 (may not use this discount if applicants are applying for student, military, or Sisters in Crime discounts).

Enjoy and learn from workshops, readings and craft sessions held at the pristine Ossabaw Island Heritage Preserve—just twenty minutes by boat from historic Savannah, Georgia and its renown restaurants, art galleries, squares and riverfront beauty.

Join us at the 12th Annual Spring Ossabaw Island Writers’ Retreat which spans six days and includes lodging, meals, writing workshops, one-on-one manuscript consultations with nationally recognized authors, craft seminars, readings, and ferried transportation to the island.

APPLICATION DEADLINE. Tuition $3595.  $200 early application discount deadline: December 31, 2024.  Final application deadline, February 15, 2025. Early applications highly recommended since there are limit openings (five per genre) and the retreat tends to fill quickly.

  • Accepted file types: doc, docx, rtf, Max. file size: 512 MB.

  • Instructions for manuscript

    • Send your best work; not work to be discussed in workshop.
    • Your manuscript must be:
      1. ten pages maximum (poets) or fifteen pages (fiction/nonfiction)
      2. Standard 12 pt type
      3. Without name or contact info in the works
        Title of manuscript (fiction/non-fiction):
        Title of poems, (five max):
      4. Submit documents in word format (doc or docx) or rich text format (rtf)
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

WORKSHOP SELECTION: After our reader selects qualified manuscripts, we use blind lotteries to fill the seats.

PAYMENT POLICY: Every application must be accompanied by a $25 non-refundable reading fee and $375 tuition deposit. Your deposit will be refunded if you withdraw your application before acceptance, or if you’re not accepted into one of the workshops. Tuition balance is payable upon acceptance. Acceptances will be emailed on a rolling basis. Should the balance of the tuition remain unpaid for forty-eight hours after acceptance, your seat will be awarded to another qualified applicant and your $375 deposit will be forfeited. Once you pay in full, the workshop seat is reserved for you. All sales are final.

CANCELLATION POLICY: After you have paid for the workshop, should you have to cancel for any reason, we will exercise our best efforts to find a qualified writer to replace you. If we can do so, we will refund your tuition. If we cannot replace you, we will not refund your tuition payment. The later the cancellation date, the more difficult it is for staff to find a qualified participant. We recognize that emergencies do happen and we will do our best to help you. But we cannot guarantee that we will be able to replace you in the event of a cancellation.