above: Nancy Kress presents at the 2013 Rainforest.
The first retreat began in February 2007. The idea was to create at least one time and place in the year where all but writing was put aside. The objective was to create an annual writers' gathering that focused on:
- solitary and community writing...
- in an isolated environment...
- supported by a collective of contemporaries of like mind and pursuits.
Writers gather at a location of minimized outside interference or influence, ready to spend an intensive four or five days on their own work, with others involved in the same who were present for support and interactive development of written creative work as art, craft, and science. Balanced against this is a schedule of events aimed at supporting this process, with the number of retreat guests and attendees kept to a limit.
"The Rain Forest Resort Village" is situated on Lake Quinault in the Pacific Northwest Pennisula. Local populations are small and centers of civilization are approximately 50 miles from the resort; close enough for those who wish to seek them out, and far enough for others not to have to seek escape from them. The resort has no phones in the rooms or cabins, and little to no cell phone service. It is its own little village, with a restaurant, general store, gift shop, lounge, post office, and laundromat on site.
Participants get writing time free of work and daily social life. They get professional advice from, and interaction with, guests who have had success in the writing business.
This is the Rainforest Writers Village.
About the Staff
 PATRICK SWENSON
- Administrator/Director
Patrick's first novel, The Ultra Thin Man, is forthcoming from Tor Books in 2014. He was the editor and publisher of Talebones, which began in 1995 and ended with its 39th issue in 2009. In 2000, he began Fairwood Press, a book line, which is still running. He's a graduate of the Clarion West Writer's Workshop. He has sold short fiction to Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, Like Water for Quarks, Figment, Northwest Writers, and others. He has been a high school teacher for 28 years, and is the proud poppa of Orion Avery, age 11.
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