Short forms, long weekend.
2025 Conference Dates:
Conference: October 16th - 19th
Add-on Writing Retreat: October 19th - 24th
Registration Opens March 1st, 2025
“As a newbie to the writing world, I did not know what to expect in a writing conference. All my fears melted away when Penny opened the workshop with her humor and authenticity. She set the perfect tone for all participants to be willing to take risks, share deeply personal stories and receive feedback.”
About The Conference:
Participants come to Iota to study all forms of short prose writing, including essays, prose poems, short stories, flash fiction and nonfiction, micro essays, and much more. “Short” is a relative term, of course, and our students work onsite on pieces that vary in length from flash to novellas. The conference is generative, and we know that some pieces begun at Iota have grown into much longer projects once the authors got back home.
Iota is designed to help writers break from questions about genre. When is a piece a micro essay and when is it a prose poem or when does it turn into flash fiction? Iota posits that it doesn’t matter: just write it.
2025 Conference Faculty:
Melanie Brooks is the author of the memoir A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all (Vine Leaves Press, 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press, 2017). She teaches creative nonfiction in the M.F.A. program at Bay Path University and in the M.F.A. program at Western Connecticut State University and professional writing at Northeastern University. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast writing program and a Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She has had numerous interviews and essays on topics ranging from loss and grief to parenting and aging published in The Boston Globe, HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, Psychology Today, The Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two children (when they are home from university), and chocolate Lab.
www.melaniebrooks.com
Suzanne Strempek Shea is the author of six novels and five works of nonfiction with settings including Polish America, Ireland, Malawi, a bookstore and a radiation oncology department. Suzanne began writing creatively in her spare time while reporting for the Springfield (Mass.) Newspapers and The Providence (R.I.) Journal, and has freelanced for publications including Yankee, The Bark, Golf World, The Boston Globe, The Irish Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Obit and ESPN the Magazine. She founded Bay Path University's MFA and has taught in MFA programs at Emerson College, the University of South Florida and the University of Southern Maine. She is co-organizer of Iota Short forms, frequently teaches and lectures on the healing possibility of writing, and for six years has led an annual writing seminar in Dingle, Ireland.
www.suzannestrempekshea.org
2024 Conference Schedule
2025 Schedule - More information coming
Sunday:
11:30 Registration Opens
1:30 Welcome and Formal Start
2:00 Workshops (3 hours)
6:00 Dinner
7:30 Faculty Reading
Monday:
8:00-10:00 Breakfast Bar
10:30 Facilitated Discussion (1 hour)
12:00 Lunch
2:00 Workshops (3 hours)
6:00 Dinner
7:30 Public Reading
8:00 Open Mic
Tuesday:
8:00-10:00 Breakfast Bar
10:30 Facilitated Discussion (1 hour)
11:45 Group Picture
12:00 Lunch
2:00 Workshops (3 hours)
6:00 Celebration Dinner with Live Music
8:00 Open Mic
Wednesday:
8:00 Hot Breakfast
9:00 Workshops (3 hours)
12:00 Bag Lunch, Conference Farewells and Departure
Add an Iota of a Retreat!
Running the week after the conference, it’s an opportunity to continue experiencing the peace and inspiration of the conference. Allow yourself the gift of processing all you’ve engaged with during the conference and having space to WRITE! The retreat will be set at your own speed, and you may tailor the day’s activities to your own to schedule.
Write, read, relax, explore the region and/or venture no farther than the Institute’s fifty acres of forest and former farmland via the many trails awaiting you there and beyond.
Lodging
Heartwood Lodge is a beautiful & comfortable home during the conference. Different room types are available to meet your needs, with full size beds and single bunk beds. Each room has a private bathroom and is available with single or double occupancy. The Lodge has a quiet library, a communal kitchen with dining room and laundry facilities.
2025 Conference Pricing
Conference Registration Fee: More information coming
• Conference workshops & activities
• Lunches included
Lodging & Commuter Pricing
Private Lodging: More information coming
• 3 nights
• Single room with attached bathroom.
• Breakfasts & Dinners included
Double Lodging: More information coming
• 3 nights
• Shared room with attached bathroom.
• Breakfasts & Dinners included
RV Camping: More information coming
• 3 nights
• Plug in and access shared bathrooms & common space.
• Breakfasts & Dinners included
Camping: More information coming
• 3 nights
• Bring your own tent and access shared bathrooms & common space.
• Breakfasts & Dinners included
Commuter Rate: no additional fee
Add-on meals for Commuters: More information coming
• Optional Breakfasts and Dinners
2025 Retreat Pricing
Retreat Registration Fee: More information coming
• 4 nights
• Private room with attached bathroom.
• Lunch Wednesday through Breakfast Sunday included
• Optionally attend Cobscook Movement Classes