Monday, June 22 to Sunday, June 28. Your weekly line-up of events, activities, and deadlines for writers who crave inspiration, motivation, accountability, and the support of community.
Jun 21, 2026
Highlights
The summer schedule means changes to the Top Secret Write Along. Scroll down for the updated Friday writing schedule (paid subscriber perk).
Write by the Pool 2026 is one of those retreats where you get to choose to join us for one, two, or three days to make progress on your WIP, make connections with other women writers, and make friends with your creative identity. Friday, July 31 + Saturday, August 1 + Sunday, August 2, 2026 at the Bay Club / Marriott Renaissance in Walnut Creek, CA. Friday is free when you pay for Saturday, Sunday, or both. Newbies welcome! Email me ASAP: Bronwyn.Coach@gmail.com (repeat retreaters can text me). Click for pricing.
The Butterfly and Be Wellness and Writing Retreatis like a physical and spiritual reset, with a focus on treating yourself with the grace, kindness, and respect usually reserved for strangers and loved ones outside your body. Pilates trainer and wellness coach Janet Salsman shows you how to nurture the physical side with food, movement, and lessons in good sleep hygiene. I show you how to nurture your inner self with journaling, wild writing, and lessons in storytelling for self discovery.
Are you doing Flash Lit with us? I post prompts and in my Facebook community, To Live & Write, but if you subscribe to this newsletter, you also get the prompts in your email. Prompt #8 drops this Tuesday, June 23. You can start any time in June or save the whole collection for another time (just set a reminder to actually do it, because it’s a fun challenge).If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, let me know in the comments and I’ll fill you in.
Have you tried writing in the company of other writers? Membership in To Live & Writegives you access to two free in-person and two free virtual writing meetups every week (membership is also free). Give it a whirl. See what you think. There is room for you, and you are welcome.
https://bronwynemery.com/events
Need a coach to help you through the tricky bits or set a pace and make a plan that fits with the natural rhythms of your life? Drop me a line. The first consultation is free.
I'm sitting in a room with seven other women, our bodies and our writing tools and our water bottles spread comfortably around the room. Two writers are ensconced on the couch. The rest of us have claimed the arm chairs.
We're using a mix of side tables, lap desks, and ottomans to write. The one actual desk squats, abandoned and alone, on the other side of the room. I'm sitting on its chair, which I dragged over to a tall side so I can be right here in the middle of the magic.
Every hour, I give the writers a heads up. One of them - usually Janet - hits the 30-Second Dance Button and we all get up to stretch or dance. And by dance, I mean stretching to the rhthym. It's only 30 seconds of movement, but it’s a fantastic way to spike adrenaline again and keep the body from freezing in the sitting position.
It's also my excuse to walk around and make sure everyone drinks water and has snacks as they settle back into writing.
On the other side of our wall of windows, the best side of Reno invites us to gaze across the foothills and up into the Sierra Nevada mountains, and drink in the deep green trees, the sun-drenched slopes, the lightly scattered wisps of summer clouds in the wide blue sky.
On this side of the windows, we're wandering the landscapes inside our books--each story set in a wildly different place and time. It’s the top of a building for one set of characters, a stretch of land on the edge of a dangerous border for another. It's downtown DC, it's a retirement community in Southern California, it’s an island in the Pacific Nothwest.
It's a dinky apartment in a world of shifters and mages. It’s a fictional version of my hometown. It's the afterlife.
Our characters solve crimes, commit crimes, find their strength, find their humility, come to terms with the past, build new futures, help others, help themselves.
Friday night, in the cozy living room setting of our writing suite, we honored a full day of writing on the train by sharing samples of our work with each other at Proof of Write. We do this every night on every retreat, to prove we have been using writing time to write, sure, but also because travel from imagination to imagination is a luxury that fits every budget.
That said, it is definitely a privileged sort of membership, to be in the company of creative women as they write, as they discover and engineer plot lines, story lines, and the lines that will make the reader's heart race, laugh, or bleed—and then share samples with each other.
Organizing and leading writing retreats is hard work, when I remember it's work. But I designed my retreats long ago to feed my soul as well as everyone else's. Except for a few stressful travel-related blips that are always going to blip, regardless of everyone's best laid plans, my retreats are fun, inspiring, entertaining, and reinvigorating for me and, I hope, everyone else who comes along.
Being on this retreat, just like all the retreats before it, is both a privilege and form of reassurance that the magic we make as a community in To Live & Write is real. I'm not just talking about the magic within each story, although that's huge. I’m talking about the life-affirming magic of being able to take our community anywhere and know it will remain intact--with us wherever we go.
I have the advantage of having built a writing community over 12 years that thrives on a consistent culture of genuine support and connection, as well as a well-founded habit of embracing newcomers and letting them know right off the bat that they’re welcome, they belong, and they’re part of our community.
My primary role on retreat is to create and protect an environment where each writer gets the motivation, accountablity, and recognition they need to make significant progress on their writing projects. Every retreat has its own mix of personalities, its own group dynamic to be discovered and gently corralled and nurtured.
I am gobsmacked and overcome - but why am I surprised? - each time I get to witness the way our community travels into new places and shows itself to be whole and strong, despite unfamiliar surroundings.
The familiar is in the feeling. The culture. The way each group dynamic is its own, but it's still a reflection of the larger group, the To Live & Write community.
We sit here, we eight women writing eight completely different books, each book at a different stage, each writer with a different goal, a different lifestyle, a different career, a different background--all comfortable and relaxed and writing unencumbered by the fear of judgement or that horrible question: am I good enough to be here?
Yes. You're more than good enough to be here.
I'm wearing joggers and a loose t-shirt. The writers across from me are wearing leggings - one with a loose tee, one with a hoodie. The next writer over is wearing a dress and long cardigan. Sharing the couch: jeans and a nice, fitted tee next to workout gear, head to toe. On my left, coming back around the room, a collared shirt and loose pants followed by crisp capris, sleeveless blouse, and short cardigan. Four of us are wearing socks, three are barefoot, and one has her shoes on.
We write on paper, on phones, on tablets, and on laptops. Our tools are high-end, low-end, and everything in between. They work. And that’s what matters.
If you can see yourself wearing something comfy while you write in this sort of situation, and if you are kind when it comes to giving feedback but lean to good-natured snark when you're hanging out with friends, you probably one of us without realizing it. Yet.
As I write this, it's morning session on the second day of the June, 2026 Write on the Rails retreat—the first of two at the hotel. Friday on the train is always the kind of hard work that sneaks up on you. And there are people. Strangers! It's super cool but it's nice that Saturday in the writing suite is just us.
We began Morning Session with Morning Meeting: 30 minutes of socializing and goal setting followed by three hours of writing, two hours to eat, nap, walk, swim, or whatever, and three more hours of writing in the Afternoon Session. Then we'll be chatting at dinner and before you know it, we'll be upstairs in the suite again, doing another Proof of Write, being captivated, again, by the words of the writers around us.
Is there anything better than being carried away by a story? Not for me. These retreats may be my job, but they're also my pleasure.
Membership in To Live & Write is not necessary for my retreats, but I do encourage it because it’s free and it’s where most of the writers you meet and connect with on retreat stay in touch through their membership.
If you write for any reason, you are welcome in ourcommunity. Let our voices drown out any negative voices holding you back. We are all about support and encouragement. We see you. And we would love for you to join us.
This is the link to the Facebook group To Live & Write, where you can hang out, check us out, and move into engagement at your own pace, on your terms. You don’t have to be in there to join us for Write Ins and Write Alongs, but it’s a good place to start.
Not on Facebook? Let me know in the comments where to find you or email me for easy ways to get in on our gatherings. Newbie or professional writer, let’s chat about your needs, how I can help, and how you can benefit from membership in To Live & Write. My email is bronwyn.coach@gmail.com.
Hyper-local, super productive, 4-hour writing retreat
There’s nothing quite like quietly writing in the company of other writers, with someone else facilitating time and responsibility to really feed your creative need. Come delight yourself with what you can get done with us on a Saturday morning.
Comment to request membership in the RSVP text thread*
2. Elevenses
Join our weekly in-person gathering to discuss writing, the writing life, and your WIP with people who know what you’re talking about, feel your pain, and delight in your success.
Tuesdays: 11:00am-1:00pm PST. Members only (membership is free)
Jump online to write in the company of other writers. Borrow their focus and flow, lose yourself in parallel play, and benefit from body doubling without having to leave your home. Join when you can, leave when you have to.
Tuesdays: 7:00-9:00pm PST. (excluding the 3rd Tuesday of the month))
Comment to request membership in the RSVP text thread*
4. The Wednesday Write In
Start your day off with a hot cup of coffee and put some strong writing energy back into the middle of your week.
The Top Secret Write Along is an online writing session where we gather to write quietly in each other’s company without having to leave the house.
Fridays this summer:
June 26: 12-130pm PST
July 3 and July 10: 12-3pm PST
August 21 and August 28: 12-3pm PST
If you’re a paid subscriber, comment for membership in the RSVP text thread*
6. Proof of Write
Wrap up the weekend and kick off the week with positive feedback.
This online gathering is a safe place for writers to share up to 5 minutes of raw, rough, or polished work written the previous week. Every participant must give - and then sit still to receive - positive feedback.
Proof of Write
8pm on Zoom Sundays (meeting ID provided with RSVP text or email)
Paid subscriber perk! This is your chance to listen to how your words land in a reader’s mind and mouth, where the text flows, where it stumbles, whether your voice and tone hit the way you wanted, and more.
The Bay Club / Marriott Renaissance in Walnut Creek, CA.
Saturday or Sunday: $259
Saturday and Sunday: $459
Friday is free when you book Saturday, Sunday, or both.
Prices include poolside cabana, cabana perks (food and drink ordered from and consumed in the cabana, up to $50/person), and full access to the Bay Club Walnut Creek amenities (pools, hot tub, sauna, workout equipment, exercise classes, lockers, showers, cafe, etc.). Prices do not include other meals, parking, accommodations, or incidentals.
And then: Butterfly and Be Wellness and Writing Retreat
Aug 14-16
This retreat is a collaboration with Janet Salsman of Butterfly Wellness Garden and Recess Physical Fitness. I bring the journaling, the wild writing, and lessons in storytelling for self-discovery. Janet brings the movement and exercise (designed specifically to support the writer’s body), healthy food prep demos, and lessons in the ROI of good sleep hygiene. Did I mention wine tasting Friday afternoon? Cloverdale, CA. $499 - includes meals but does not include accommodations. Email me for info (this is a pilot retreat so there are no website pages to link to yet): bronwyn.coach@gmail.com
Labs & Workshops
Now:
Camp MEG - Wednesday nights, June 17-July 15
Next:
Camp MEG - Wednesday nights, July 22-August 12
Inspiration, Motivation, & Accountability!
For writing tips and habit hacks from your friendly neighborhood writing + creativity coach (hey! that’s me!), sneak peeks at what’s going on in my workshops, examples of my own writing, and exclusive invitations to secret writing situations, consider a paid subscription.
Gratuitous Kitty Shot!
Making the bed is for suckers. Morning naps are for expert sleepers. Take up space, baby! It matters.
*Group text threads are for women and non-binary writers.
