“A restful, nourishing, well-filling dream. Marjorie has a magical touch with flavours and words.”
– Catriona, November 2024 guest
Join Marjorie for residential writing retreats on the Galloway coast in south-west Scotland. Our 2025 retreats are now fully booked, and the 2026 retreats will be released soon at https://www.gallowayhouseestate.org/copy-of-retreats-residencies
Our retreats include five nights of accommodation in one of Galloway House Estate’s four cottages, fully-catered meals, daily creative writing sessions, an hour of 1/1 feedback with the guest tutor, several evenings of entertainment and yoga. The retreats also include plenty of unstructured time to write and explore the local beaches, woodlands, nearby villages (including Scotland’s National Book Town, Wigtown) and our local café and pub. Each cottage also has a fully-equipped kitchen and sitting room. Massage may also be available during the week at an additional cost.
2025 Tutored Writing Retreats
Monday 17th – Sunday 23rd March
Monday 9th – Sunday 15th June
Sunday 14th – Friday 19th September
Monday 10th – Sunday 16th November
Please contact Marjorie for 2025 September and November weeks, or to add your name to a waiting list.
John Glenday
John Glenday is the author of four collections. The Apple Ghost (Peterloo Poets, 1989) won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award; Undark (Peterloo Poets, 1995) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and Grain (Picador, 2010) was shortlisted for both the Ted Hughes Award and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. His most recent collection, The Golden Mean (Picador 2015) was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Poetry Book of the Year and won the 2016 Roehampton Poetry Prize. His Selected Poems was published by Picador in 2020. Other publications include Mira (Coast to Coast to Coast, with Maria Isakova Bennett) and ‘The Firth’ (Mariscat Press, 2020). John is a highly experienced tutor and has facilitated numerous creative writing workshops and residentials including for Moniack Mhor Writers’ Centre, the Arvon Foundation, the Poetry School and the Banff Centre, Canada. He has worked for many years as a poetry mentor. He currently runs a walking and writing workshop for a mental health charity in Dundee.
Niall Campbell
Niall Campbell is from the Outer Hebrides. His first poetry collection, Moontide, was published by Bloodaxe Books and won both the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and Saltire First Book of the Year. Moontide was also shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and Aldeburgh Prize for Best First Collection. Noctuary, his second collection, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2019. A selection from these first two books were published in the U.S. as First Nights, part of the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets. His latest collection, The Island in the Sound, was published in September of this year. As a librettist, he has collaborated with both the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He is currently the editor of Poetry London. He lives in Fife.
Jane Clarke
Jane Clarke is the author of three poetry collections, The River (2015), When the Tree Falls (2019) and A Change in the Air (2023) published by Bloodaxe Books. She edited the illustrated anthology Windfall: Irish Nature Poems to Inspire and Connect (Hachette Books Ireland, 2023). She received an Arts Council of Ireland Literature Bursary Award in 2024 for the completion of her fourth collection. Her most recent collection, A Change in the Air, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2023 and the T.S. Eliot Prize 2023
Marjorie also runs regular creative writing workshops through Open Book, the National Library and other organisations.
