Writing As Refuge
Writers will gather for a weekend in the Laurel Highlands to watch spring emerge in the forest and make a temporary community in support of our own creativity. Sessions will be useful to beginning and experienced writers and are all optional. Whereas many of us identify as Mennonites, all are welcome at this retreat. Participants may bring samples of your own writing to share as well as a musical instrument if you play one.
Dates & Pricing
Dates: March 27-29, 2026
Pricing:
1 per room - $390
2 per room - $275
3 per room - $235
Details
Tentative Schedule
Friday, March 27, 2026
11:00-12:00 PM – Arrival and registration
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM – Lunch (Dining Hall)
1:30 PM – 3:00 PM – Session 1: A Container for your Confession, Kirsten Beachy: The pursuit of truth and authenticity in memoir and essay can be an intimidating business. In this session, we’ll play with alternative ways to can, pickle, and freeze your creative nonfiction content, exploring how whimsical structures might free you to tell the truth better.
3:30 PM – 5:00 PM – Optional Peer Workshops, coordinated by Julia Spicher Kasdorf: Bring two copies of several poems or short prose pieces (1-2 pages) to share.
5:15-5:45 Meditation – Poetry as Pleasure, Anita Hooley Yoder
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM – Dinner (Dining Hall)
7:30 PM – Reading, Book Sale & Swap: Anyone who has published a book is invited to bring a few copies to display, sell, or trade following a flash reading of 3-5 minutes by each author.
8:00 AM – Breakfast (Dining Hall)
9:00 -9:45 AM Yoga – Embodied Creativity, Rachel Allen: A gentle movement and somatic practice with breath work and sound healing designed to tap into creative energy and inspiration. This practice involves standing and seated movement, either seated on the floor or a chair, and can accommodate varying abilities. Participants are welcome to bring a yoga mat and or a blanket if they choose.
10:15 AM – 11:45 AM – Session II: Phantom Power(s), Jeff Gundy: We all live in what seems like the “real world,” and yet on every side what we know and experience grays out into mystery and uncertainty. How can we find our way into the realms just beyond what we know with our ordinary senses?
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM – Lunch (Dining Hall)
1:15 PM – 2:45 PM – Session III: Not 5-7-5: Haiku as a Resource for All, Daniel Shank Cruz: When major seismic splits happen in culture like those occurring now, cross-genre strategies for reading, writing, and thinking are imperative to innovation and building fellowship. This session offers a brief introduction to the widely-practiced global genre of English-language haiku.
3:00 PM –Free time for relaxation, naps, walks, writing, conversation
5:15-5:45 – Meditation: Poetry as Presence, Anita Hooley Yoder
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM – Dinner (Dining Hall)
7:45 PM – Reading of new writing by all
8:00 AM – 9:00 AM – Breakfast (Dining Hall)
9:30 AM – 10:30 AM – Poetry as Courage, Anita Hooley Yoder
11:00 AM – 11:30 AM – Departure
Resource Team
Rachel Allen (she/her) is a theme-based yoga teacher and workshop facilitator who uses live music, breath, and movement to encourage and support self-acceptance and self-reflection. She lives in Johnstown, PA and leads music at Stahl Mennonite Church. Her first chapbook, Blessings Beyond Bypass, was published in 2022.
Rachel will offer a yoga session on Saturday morning.
Kirsten Eve Beachy (she/her) lives in Briery Branch, Virginia, where she writes about chickens, motherhood, disability, and changelings. Her memoir-in-essays, Martyrs and Chickens: Confessions of a Granola Mennonite, was published by Dreamseeker Books in 2025.
Kirsten will teach alternative ways to “tell the truth better” through creative nonfiction writing.
Daniel Shank Cruz (they/multitudes) is, most recently, the author of a hybrid memoir/literary critical text, Ethics for Apocalyptic Times: Theapoetics, Autotheory, and Mennonite Literature (Penn State University Press, 2024), and a good possible year for an apocalypse: poems (Red Moon Press, 2025).
Daniel will introduce cross-genre writing strategies that aid in innovation and fellowship.
Jeff Gundy (he/him) is the author of fourteen books, including Reports from an Interior Province: New and Selected Poems, just out. He is working on a “Phantom Power(s)” manuscript, and is Writer in (Non)Residence and Professor Emeritus at Bluffton University.
Jeff will talk about embracing gray areas of mystery and uncertainty in remembering.
Julia Spicher Kasdorf (she/her) has published four collections of lyric poems in the Pitt Poetry Series, and is currently at work on a second book of documentary poems with photographs by Steven Rubin. She also writes essays and makes a living teaching and directing the creative writing program at Penn State.
Julia, organizer of the retreat, will facilitate a peer writing workshop.
Shannon Telenko (she/her/hers) has studied urban-to-rural migration and Pennsylvania culture as an anthropologist. She works in the Division of Undergraduate Studies at Penn State and serves on the boards for Ridgelines Language Arts and Laurelville. Her first poem, “These Kinds of Northern Appalachian Men,” will be published by the Appalachian Journal later this year.
Shannon, organizer of the retreat, will help to make sure things run smoothly.
Anita Hooley Yoder (she/her) lives in University Heights, Ohio, with her husband. She works as a campus minister at a Catholic high school. She attends Friendship Mennonite Church and is the author of a book about Mennonite women's organizations. She loves good books, good food, and bad Cleveland sports teams.
Anita will lead meditations on poetry.