A Residential & Generative Flash Workshop with Kathy Fish in
Charles Town, WV
Monday Oct. 20 - Friday, Oct. 24, 2025
We will be staying at this beautiful “Almost Heaven” home in the Eastern Panhandle of beautiful West Virginia on the outskirts of Charles Town (not to be confused with Charleston on the other side of the state).
The registration fee covers workshop costs, one individual session with Kathy Fish, workshop materials, private room with bedding and towels, continental breakfast, lunch, dinner, light snacks, parking, and welcome gift.
Writing spaces abound in the nooks and crannies and porches of this amazing home. And when you just need a break, there are firepits, 2 hot tubs, arcade games, an exercise room, a pool table, a ping pong table, and a rescue farm next door (that we are welcome to visit) with cows, ducks, horses, chickens, bunnies and more.
Participants are responsible for their own transportation to and from the retreat venue. (Just fyi, you will not need a car while you are attending the retreat as all events are on-site.)
Kathy Fish’s stories have been widely published in journals, anthologies, and textbooks. Her work has been published in Ploughshares, Guernica, Swamp Pink, Electric Literature, Denver Quarterly, Best American Nonrequired Reading, the Norton Reader, and Norton’s Flash Fiction America (2023). Honors include the Copper Nickel Editor’s Prize, six appearances in the Best Small Fictions series, and a Ragdale Foundation Fellowship. Additionally, she was recently awarded a writer’s residency through the Kerouac Project in Orlando, Florida. The author of five short fiction collections, Fish teaches a variety of writing workshops online.
She also publishes a popular monthly craft newsletter, The Art of Flash Fiction, which was recently named as one of the 20 Best Creative Writing Substacks by Writers at Work.
Ellen Weeren
Your Host Ellen Weeren has been published by the Saturday Evening Post, the Kenyon Review (KRonline), Fracture Lit, Liars’ League NYC, the Hong Kong Review, Crack the Spine, Stonecoast Review, and others. She’s the recipient of the George Mason 2019 Outstanding Graduate Student Award (MFA Fiction), the Porches Writing Fellowship, the Dan Rudy Fiction Award, the Marjorie Kinnear Sydor Award in Literary Citizenship, and the Kenyon Review’s Novel Writing Workshop Peter Taylor Fellowship. TripBase twice recognized her blog about living in India as one of the top 10 best travel blogs. Ellen also runs writing workshops and retreat spaces through A Reason to Write.
Schedule
Monday. Oct. 20
Arrive between 4 PM and 6PM
6:30 PM Opening dinner and meet and greet (happy hour)
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
- Continental Breakfast
- Morning generative workshop with Kathy
- Writing Time/Lunch
- Additional Craft Lesson w/prompt
- One-on-One Sessions with Kathy
- Dinner
Departure day – Friday
Breakfast and depart by 10am
Pricing
Early Bird Specials:
Register before midnight (EST) August 30, 2025
Private Room/Private Bathroom = $1, 575.00
Private Room/Shared Bathroom = $1,425.00
Register After August 30th
Private Room/Private Bathroom (if available) = $1,700.00
Private Room/Shared Bathroom (if available) = $1,550.00
The Fine Print
- A 50% deposit is required to reserve your spot.
- Full payment will be due 5 days before the workshop begins. (Deposits on Early Bird Specials must be paid by midnight on August 30.)
- There will be no refunds after Oct. 1, unless we can fill the spot with another writer.
- In the case of a refund, there will be a 10% cancellation fee.
FAQs for the Kathy Fish Workshop
First and foremost, a chance to study with Kathy Fish and have an individual meeting with her. But also all workshop materials and a welcoming gift. Plus, accommodations from Monday afternoon on Oct. 21 through Friday morning on Oct. 25th, including free parking if you choose to have a car at the retreat. All meals starting with dinner on Monday and ending with breakfast on Friday, plus snacks and drinks.
The retreat in nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Charles Town, West Virginia, just over an hour from Washington, DC, by car. It’s about 20 minutes by Uber from the Harpers Ferry Train Station and about 1 ½ hours by car/Uber from both Dulles International and BWI airports.
Participants are responsible for the costs and arrangements for getting to and from the retreat space. We can suggest third-party vendors for airport/train transport but are not able to coordinate arrangements for you. All workshop events will happen at the retreat space, so you do not need a car during the workshop.
Yes, all of the rooms are private rooms.
Some rooms have private bathrooms and are priced accordingly. Reservations will be taken on a first-come, first-served basis. Please register early if you want a private bathroom.
The pricing is structured on one person in each room.
The workshop fee covers lodging, meals, and workshop activities. You do not have to stay on property but fees cannot be reduced.
Yes. Prompts and writing time are part of the workshops. Plus, after dinner, you are free to spend your time however you’d like.
Of course. Please just let us know as soon as possible what your concerns are so that we can fully plan for them.
No. Not in the house or near entrances.
Not Allowed
Unfortunately, the house is booked before and after our event. But we can recommend nearby hotels if you’d like to do that. Ellen also has writer retreat space at her home a few miles from the workshop space. Please reach out to her here if you’d like to discuss options.