Your weekend will be hosted by children’s book writers Lisa Bullard and Laura Purdie Salas. Between them, the two have more than one hundred children’s books to their credit.

This retreat will offer you more than just a chance to learn from their expertise and insider knowledge. Lisa and Laura share another credential: they each have a proven passion for mentoring other writers. Now they are collaborating to offer this singular opportunity for you to take time away and nurture the writer within you!

Lisa Bullard is an author, freelance editor, and writing teacher. Her picture books are humorous, colorful, and warm-hearted—a lot like Lisa herself. Her book You Can Write a Story! is a hit with young wordsmiths. With more than 50 published books, Lisa currently teaches writing at the Loft Literary Center. lisabullard.com

Laura Purdie Salas is a poet and nonfiction writer with more than 80 children's books published. She teaches adults how to write for kids through both online and in-person classes and workshops. Laura's book Stampede! Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School was a finalist for the 2010 Minnesota Book Award. laurasalas.com

Laura and Lisa invite you to join them whether you are an intrigued newcomer or an “old hand” at writing: writers at every stage need time away from the everyday to learn, explore, and grow. Isn't this finally your time? We promise you good company while you re-ignite your writing dream!

We’ve developed a schedule that we believe allows you the optimum mix of writing time, learning time, sharing time, and social time. You can of course tailor the experience to meet your own needs: if you need more writing time, feel free to take it! Or if you're someone who needs more social interaction, we'll have a dedicated “Retreat Room” for participants to gather and talk, share work, and dream big together. We've allowed you eight hours of healthful sleep—but we hope to have inspired you to the degree that your subconscious
will be creating away even during those hours.

Praise for Lisa and Laura's Mentoring Techniques

Special guest Ann Rider is an executive editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She works out of her home in northern Minnesota and counts herself lucky to be able to work with such extraordinary Midwestern talents such as Rick Allen, Betsy Bowen, Jim Brandenburg, Kelly Dupre, Lise Lunge-Larsen, Jackie Briggs Martin, Beckie Prange, Joyce Sidman, Susan Marie Swanson, and Catherine Thimmesh. 

She likes to publish in all genres of children’s literature and some of the books she has edited are Dark Emporer and Other Poems of the Night, The House in the Night, Snowflake Bentley, Red Sings from Treetops, The Lemonade War, Team Moon, Gym Candy, and Breaking Through.