8 days in Spain. 18 writers. Come.
& I want you to come with me.
Hi friend—
I’ve been sitting on this news for a little while now, and I think I’ve earned every wrinkle that came with the keeping of it.
Because here’s the thing: I’m going to Spain. And I want you to come with me.
For eight days next year (May 31 - June 7, 2027), I’ll be teaching a personal essay retreat at a private countryside estate in the Cabo de Gata Natural Park, in the Almería region of southern Spain. We’ll have the entire property to ourselves: gardens, an outdoor swimming pool, terraces, common areas, three workshop spaces (including a 4,000-square-foot tent that’s been converted into a studio, which I’m a little obsessed with already). Rooms are clustered in casitas—small traditional Spanish houses—each one a private single-occupancy room with an ensuite bathroom, orthopedic mattress, cotton sheets, A/C, heating, Wi-Fi, and your own terrace. No roommate negotiations. You get a door you can close.
And the landscape! I keep trying to describe it and falling short. Andalusian valleys, rugged cliffs, fiery sunsets, the kind of vistas that stretch from the terraces in a way that does something to your nervous system. The estate sits inside a nature reserve. The interiors blend Andalusian artistry with Balinese tranquility.
I have, frankly, never sold anything I’m more excited about than this.
Here’s the link, and I’ll give it to you again at the bottom because I know how inboxes go:
👉 https://uptrek.com/retreat/write-your-own-personal-essay-retreat-author-esme-weijun-wang-spain
Let me tell you what we’ll actually be doing there, because I want you to be able to picture it.
Hands-on personal essay classes, every day. Not lectures and not panels, but real, generative work coming out of writing sessions, group workshops, and individual tuition with me, working from prompts I’ve been refining for years through The Unexpected Shape and through my own writing of The Collected Schizophrenias. We’ll move through the architecture of the personal essay together (e.g. structure, the braided form, the lyric turn, the question of what you owe the people in your story versus what you owe the truth), and you’ll leave with at least one essay in real, revisable shape. Your room will have a writing/laptop stand for bed and an extra lamp for solo writing time, because the work continues outside the workshop, too.
Meeting me in person. I have to be honest with you: I rarely teach in person anymore. My health makes it complicated, and I’ve been protective of the energy I do have. Which is part of why this matters so much to me. The retreat has been built around real rest, real pacing, and real care, so I get to actually be there and available for 1:1 time, meeting you across a small workshop table, reading your pages and looking you in the eye while we talk about them. For so many of you who’ve been with me through the newsletter, the Academy, and/or the books, this will be the first time we actually meet. I find that almost unbearably moving to think about.
The food is going to be incredible. Every meal is prepared on-site by a private chef: seven breakfasts, six lunches, and seven dinners of Andalusian cooking at its peak. Tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, octopus, jamón, almond gazpacho, fresh fish from the coast, olive oil pressed nearby (for example!). Fragrant local wine (and non-alcoholic alternatives) at dinner. A snack bar with coffee, tea, and snacks available all day. Every dietary need is catered for—pescatarian, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, lactose-free, diabetic. Past attendees genuinely cannot stop talking about the food afterward.
The trips out. Cabo de Gata is one of the last truly unspoiled stretches of Spanish coastline, including volcanic cliffs, hidden coves, and beaches you’ll have nearly to yourself. We’ll take a half-day trip to the city of Almería, including a guided visit to the historic Alcazaba Fortress and lunch at a beloved local establishment, and there’s an optional half-day trip out to the Cabo de Gata coastline with lunch at a restaurant in San José. Private transportation, an English-speaking guide who actually knows the place, and airport transfers from Almería are included. You step off the plane, and you are taken care of.
The community. Eighteen writers. That’s the whole group. Eight days of meals and walks and afternoons by the pool is its own kind of alchemy; the friendships people make on retreats like this tend to outlast the retreat by, oh, the rest of their lives. I’ve watched it happen. It happens. (And four months before we go, you’ll be invited into a private Facebook group with me and your fellow attendees, so the friendships have a head start.)
Now—a real word about money. I want to say this clearly: an international writing retreat is a significant investment, and I am very aware that only a small number of you are going to be in a position to say yes to something like this. If that’s not you right now, please don’t read this email as anything other than what it is, which is an invitation, not a measure of your seriousness as a writer. I work hard to keep a lot of what I offer free or low-cost. Those doors stay open. This one is for the people who can walk through it, and I want them to know it exists.
For those of you in a position to take this on, I’d love for it to be you.
👉 https://uptrek.com/retreat/write-your-own-personal-essay-retreat-author-esme-weijun-wang-spain
Click through. Read the full details (& check out the photos!). There are eighteen spots, the actual capacity of the estate, not a marketing flourish—and I’m telling you, my inner circle, before any of this hits social media. Which means right now you have first pick of the casitas before it goes public. There are eighteen spots, the actual capacity of the estate, and you, my inner circle, get them first. I wanted you to have the casitas before social media does.
For any questions about pricing, payment plans, accessibility, room options, what to pack, whether your specific situation will work, and whatever other queries you might have, please email contact@uptrek.com. The team there is genuinely wonderful, and they have answers to questions I haven’t even thought of yet. I’m going to be heads-down preparing the curriculum, so they’re truly the best people to ask.
I hope—really, sincerely, with my whole chest—that I get to read your pages across a long Spanish table next year.
👉 https://uptrek.com/retreat/write-your-own-personal-essay-retreat-author-esme-weijun-wang-spain
With love (and more anticipation than I know what to do with),
P.S. If you’ve been waiting for the right reason to take your essay writing seriously, or to take yourself seriously as an essayist, and you’re in a position to come, this is the reason. Eight days. Eighteen writers. One estate in southern Spain. Come.
Esmé Weijun Wang is the author of the New York Times-bestselling essay collection The Collected Schizophrenias and the novel The Border of Paradise, as well as the founder of The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy at esmewang.com.