Walk, Write, Seek: A Writer's Pilgrimage
April 24-27, 2025
Led by Spencer Reece and Ralph James Savarese, participants came together for a four-day workshop, in poetry and memoir, at the Anglican Pilgrim Centre in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
The retreat was based on two books--The Abundance, a collection of writings by Annie Dillard, and The Art of Memoir, a manual by Mary Karr—to think about spiritual writing in a personal mode. “Spiritual” was defined as broadly and non-denominationally as possible. Through class discussion, exercises, and workshop, participants practiced techniques for crafting a voice to ask and reflect on urgent questions.
The Leaders
The Rev. Canon Spencer Reece is Rector of St. Paul's Church in Wickford, Rhode Island. He graduated from Wesleyan University where he studied “verse-writing” with Annie Dillard. A Guggenheim Fellow, long-list nominee for the National Book Award, Reece’s first manuscript, The Clerk’s Tale, was selected by Nobel Laureate Louise Glück. Father Spencer returned to seminary at Berkeley, Yale, in mid-life and was ordained to the priesthood in 2011. He was awarded a Fulbright to teach poetry at Our Little Roses, an orphanage for abandoned and abused girls in San Pedro, Sula, Honduras. His third book of poems Acts was published by FSG in May of 2024. More about Spencer Reece can be found HERE.
Ralph James Savarese graduated from Wesleyan University where he studied “verse writing” with Annie Dillard. He is the author of Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption, which Newsweek called “a real-life love story and an urgent manifesto for the rights of people with neurological disabilities,” and See It Feelingly: Classic Novels, Autistic Readers and the Schooling of a No-Good English Professor. He has twice received “notable essay” distinction in the Best American Essays series. His fourth poetry collection, Never Make Them Cry: Classrooms and Coffins, will appear in late 2024. His work has been published in American Poetry Review, Brevity, Fourth Genre, New England Review, Ploughshares, Sewanee Review, and Threepenny Review. He teaches at Grinnell College in Iowa. More about Ralph James Savarese can be found HERE.