A still lake at dawn, mist over the water, a cabin on the far shore

{{ dates }} · Lake Placid, New York · {{ seatsLine }}

Four days without your phone, with eleven strangers and a lake.

A writing and silence retreat for people who used to make things and stopped. Long mornings alone, one conversation a day, food someone else cooks. Twelve places.

You don't need a course. You need four days where nobody can reach you, a room with a desk that faces water, and someone who will ask, once a day, what you wrote. That's all this is. It works better than it should.

The four days

Every day: breakfast at 8, lunch left in the kitchen at 1, dinner together at 7. Silence from breakfast to dinner, unless you're in your conversation. Phones go in a wooden box on arrival and come out on the last morning.

A 1920s camp on the west shore. Twelve rooms, twelve desks, one long table.

A cabin bedroom with a desk at the window

Every room has its own bathroom, a bed, a desk, a lamp, and no wifi.Two hours from Albany, five from New York. We collect you from the Amtrak at Westport.

Marguerite Ellis holds it. She has done this nineteen times.

Two novels, one of which you may have read, and a decade of teaching at Bennington before she stopped to do this instead. She doesn't run workshops here. She reads what you wrote that day and asks one question about it.

Tomas Reyes cooks: three meals a day from the garden and the farms up the road, and he'll feed you whatever you can and can't eat without making it a thing.

What it costs

$2,400 per person, own room
All meals, transfers from Westport
$600 holds a place; balance six weeks before
Two places each time at $1,200 for those who need it. Just ask.

Who it's for

People who write, or used to
Any form, any level, no manuscript required
Not for anyone who needs to be reachable
Eighteen and over

If plans change

Full refund up to eight weeks out
Transfer to the next retreat up to two weeks out
Inside two weeks, the deposit is kept
If we cancel, everything back plus your train fare

Questions: marguerite@stillwater.camp. She answers them herself, slowly.