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OBX Writers Retreat

Kitty Hawk Pier

Hosted by Michele Young-Stone, author of three critically acclaimed novels, Lost in the Beehive, Above Us Only Sky, and The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors.

I designed this RETREAT to be what I crave as a writer: a time away to discuss craft, to meet and commune with other writers, and more than anything, a time to set worries aside, be inspired and WRITE, so whether you are looking to meet other writers or escape for a weekend and WRITE, this is the place for you.

Details:

Let’s Write Together

a weekend to hone and honor craft and one another.

Who? You! Come write and meet other writers.

What? A chance to write and share and commune.

Where? Hilton, Kitty Hawk, NC

When? February 7 – 10th, 2025

Why? For the soul.

What to bring? A love of the written word.

Enjoy the cold, windy February Atlantic Ocean.

Bring your bathing suit. The hotel has an indoor pool.

You can book your room here at a discounted rate:

Register for the Retreat here. Space is limited.

Questions: Email Michele at [email protected]

About Michele: She received her MFA in fiction writing from VCU and teaches for the Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, VA. She has published three novels with Random House and Simon and Schuster and has written a fourth, as yet unpublished. She is currently revising her fifth novel.

Michele is a firm believer in the revision process. Nothing is ever finished. It is just set aside. Each time we revisit the world we’ve created, we gain a deeper understanding of that world, our prospective reader (the world at large), and ourselves. Writing is about taking what’s inside ourselves and putting it on paper in a way that translates and affects the reader.

It is a holy, solitary life-affirming endeavor.

During this retreat, Michele will offer prompts and guided writing exercises. Writers will have the opportunity to share and build community.

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Coping with Corona and Social Distancing

It depends on the hour, sometimes the minute. Sometimes I’m fine, like today, I made my own antiseptic handwipes by pouring rubbing alcohol on baby wipes in a plastic bag. I felt invincible. Then, I ventured to the grocery store and bought a 4-roll pack of toilet paper, only one pack per customer, and everyone was nice at the store and eager to make conversation. (Felt good.)

Then I came home and binged leftover pizza and potato chips totally by accident and felt bad—fat.

I also bought fixings to make brownies tonight and six bottles of wine.

One minute, I feel like crying because I have to stay home, and I can’t follow my routine. I can’t go to the gym and dance, which is my thing… Zumba and Hip Hop. Then, normally, I would come home and shower, write for 3-4 hours, coach tennis or pick my son up from school, go to the library, etc.

My son is now doing online schooling. A good thing. I’m grateful to our county for putting online schooling in place so quickly.

For the students here who have never been able to afford the insurance to bring their Chromebooks home, the county has covered the cost. They’ve also supplied the students without WiFi with hotspots free of charge so that they can participate in school at home. This makes me so happy. I’m very proud of our county’s department of education. Good. Happy. Up.

As far as my writing goes, I can’t seem to concentrate. My fourth novel, in progress, is with my agent right now, and I’m really not ready to dive into novel #5, not until I have a good sense of whether I will be doing more revisions anytime soon with novel #4, and then I think, “Hey, what if people stop reading or buying books?” Then, I think, Oh MY GOD, so many people just had books come out, and they aren’t even getting to tour.

I need to buy books. I need to promote new writers and their books. I’m a writer. Writers need writers—that support, that camaraderie.

I bought We Were Promised Spotlights by Lindsay Sproul. It came out yesterday. That was a highlight. Then, I started reading it, and oh my god, it’s amazing, so I canceled my hardback purchase and bought it on Kindle. I Tweeted about it. I don’t even like to read electronically, but it’s that good. I have my afternoon figured out. Up.

Other things I did: I obsessively and messily painted my laundry room and a hallway cotton-candy pink.

My son and I threw grapes at each other, supposedly aiming for our grape/cake holes, but things didn’t work out. Then, my son, who’s fifteen, drop-kicked a grape. It hit a xylophone cat hanging on the wall and made a pretty sound. A highlight.

I took my lizard, Harry Potter, for a walk.

I made banana bread with blackberries and ate it with strawberry ice cream. I binge-watched, I’m talking one sitting, that Big Cat Documentary on Netflix, all about Joe Exotic and the other crazy meth-loving, big-cat-loving lunatics.

I’m on season six of re-watching “The Office”.

Three days into this whole thing, I tracked down the principal of my son’s high school, asking him for a Driving Eligibility Certificate so my son could get his learner’s permit in the midst of a pandemic. The principal met us in swim trunks. Super amazing, nice guy. I think he’d been at the beach with his family. I drove over an hour to an open DMV where I’d made an appointment. My son got his permit. I got my Real I. D. There was a man outside the DMV with a clipboard and a list of questions. “Have you recently traveled outside the country? Do you have a fever? Have you had a fever in the last 48 hours? Are you coughing? Have you felt fatigued? Do you think you have a fever now?” When we got inside, the chairs were situated 8 feet apart. The DMV employees were wiping everything down between appointments.

Two days into the pandemic, I finished those edits on my fourth book and submitted the ms. to my agent.

I’m trying to exercise every day to combat the pizza, chips, and brownie bingeing, but fuck it. No harm in a little snacking. No harm in getting a learner’s permit. No harm in a little TV and a lot of book reading.

Today, I stopped at Lowe’s after the grocery store, and there was a repeating loudspeaker announcing, “Keep your distance from other customers and employees.” When I went to check out, there was tape on the floor and a big X. The cashier told me to please remain on the X until she was finished scanning my items. She wiped off the credit card machine, but I also had my own fancy homemade alcohol wipes, so I used one to protect my finger. Today was my first day out and about in a long time. Thus, it was a pretty good day. I saw people other than my husband and son. I love them… Don’t get me wrong. We’re jokingly threatening to throat-punch one another, and my husband got a spotlight yesterday via UPS for our boat and shone it at my face. …

We’re going to play cards tonight, make those brownies, maybe drop-kick some grapes at one another, watch a little “Survivor”, and I’ll drink some of that wine.

Last night, I woke up at two am, short of breath, panicked. I sat up, thinking I can’t breathe. I have the Covid-19. No. I was having an anxiety/panic attack. I reminded myself that I was going to be okay and popped a Xanax. We’re going to get through this. We’re going to keep calm and write on or paint on or read on or eat on or dance on. It’s going to be okay.

I worry about my mom and all the older people, especially those in nursing homes. I worry about our nation’s infrastructure and the idiotic politicians who don’t seem to know what they’re doing.

I’d revise this thing and put it in chronological order, but this messy hodgepodge feels more representative of the last twelve days.

…I would be sorely remiss if I didn’t thank the truck drivers and cashiers and managers and stock people and all the workers at all the stores who make it possible for us to buy bleach and toilet paper and food AND the amazing teachers who are making massive adjustments to teach remotely AND the incredible, brave healthcare workers on the frontlines risking exposure to COVID-19 and mustering the patience of all the saints AND everyone else who is simply choosing to be calm and rational and kind and hopeful as we navigate unchartered waters. Yesterday was Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s 101st birthday, which means he was born the year of our last pandemic, 1919. That’s crazy to think about. …

Oh, and sometimes I read people’s posts on Instagram, about how Zen and peaceful they’re feeling, and how they are one with the universe, and I think, Oh, Go fuck yourself. Maybe they’re lying, or maybe I’m just jealous. Maybe both.

How are you doing?

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This Writer’s Life… writing the next book, process, and telling the truth to the reader and yourself

I started writing my fourth novel three years ago this month, maybe this very day. It’s been titled George Glass Loves Lily Snow, The Reinvention of Amy Brown, the working title The Reimagining of Amy Brown—because the whole thing needed to be reimagined, and finally, The Hummingbird. My past three novels have had long titles, so maybe it’s time for a short one.

What do I want now?

I want to show you the seven-plus notebooks with every page full. I want to show you early drafts with telekinesis and doors exploding off hinges. I want to tell you the life story of every character in my novel because I know them. I want to tell you how Elisenda swallowed the emeralds and held them in her gut until she soaked in a tub in Barranquilla and passed them into the lukewarm water.

I want to tell you that the main character’s mother used to be his grandmother, and after I made this change—from grandmother to mother, the members of the novel-writing group I was leading, were sorely disappointed. They really liked the grandmother. I’d liked her too, but writing is a process, and one of the things I realized was that this book was my most autobiographical, and I was afraid to make George’s grandmother his mother because it was too close to the truth, to holding up the mirror, and as you know, nothing is better than the truth. The core of all good fiction is its truth. Novelists tell more truths than memoirists. We just don’t admit to anything.

George’s mother wasn’t sympathetic like his grandmother. She was selfish how mothers can sometimes be.

At one point in the evolution of this novel, George’s foster mother was his sister, but again, it was like I was writing around what needed to be written, what had compelled me three years ago to abandon my historical novel-in-progress to tell the story of George Glass, a boy who loses his mother and has to navigate the world without her. Not only does George lose her, but it turns out she was never the woman she claimed to be. He, and the police, have no idea of her true identity.

I want to tell you how much my father’s cancer and his passing influenced this novel, and how much my love for my son, and my willingness to do anything to protect him, influenced this book. I want to tell you that I know, like the dead woman in my book, that I am selfish, that if I could keep my teenager young forever, I would do it. I’d consider consequences, but it doesn’t seem so bad—despite Tuck, Everlasting—no one growing up, no one getting old, no one dying. This might be the most honest novel I’ve ever written.

With every new book, there’s a new adventure. Every time, I hope the process will get easier, but it never does because each book is its own beast, its own treasure, a unique act of discovery. If you’re not putting down layers and scraping them away, you’re not really learning anything. You’re not, as John Gardner wrote in The Art of Fiction, making art.

This novel, like all of them, was an adventure.

2017

I want to tell you about the miracle that happened when my father died, the miracle I was in too much grief to admit to for over a year, because a miracle flies in the face of anger. A miracle crushes anger. I was reading from The Collected Poems of Robert W. Service, a book my father used to read to me early in the morning when he had his instant coffee (and late in the day when he had his beer). My father was dying. We were alone in his room, and I’d woken that morning wondering what I could do to get through the day. I got out a rocking chair and that book, which had seemingly disappeared until just that morning (I’d looked for it the day prior), and I sat across from my dad. I said, “We’ll start at page one,” even though “The Cremation of Sam McGee” was our favorite. I was reading from the poem, “The Three Voices,” (p. 8)

But the stars throng out in their glory,

And they sing of the God in man;

They sing of the Mighty Master,

Of the loom his fingers span,

Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole

And weft in the wondrous plan.

 

Here by the camp-fire’s flicker,

Deep in my blanket curled,

I long for the peace of the pine-gloom,

When the scroll of the Lord is unfurled,

And the wind and the wave are silent,

And world is singing to world.

My father and I were alone, and I knew he was gone. I knew that he had wanted me there to help send him on his way. I knew that he was a part of that firmament.

I want to tell you that this novel is for him. It’s for all of us who love, who grieve, who mourn, and who survive.

I don’t think I’m very good at “writing blogs” because I like to disguise my truth in fiction, but I needed to share the process of writing this novel and how important it is to me and what a journey it’s been thus far.

And I have lots more to share. To be continued…

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Independent Bookstores: THANK YOU!

Book Exchange, San Francisco

I went to San Francisco this summer and saw Susan Rivers’ novel, The Second Mrs. Hockaday listed as a Staff Pick at Book Passage in the Ferry Building. I’d just had the pleasure of meeting Susan at The Greensboro Bound literary festival. My family and I were walking around the wharf, waiting to take the ferry to Alcatraz when I found this incredible bookstore. I get so excited when I’m in a beautiful bookstore, filled with hand-written staff recommendations, surrounded by the brightly colored spines, and then I see books by authors I know.

Downtown Books in Manteo

Independent bookstores are an author’s best friend. This year, the owner and book buyer for my local bookstore Downtown Books in Manteo, Jamie Hope Anderson, championed my third novel, Lost in the Beehive, and when I say, “championed,” I mean she went out of her way to promote it. We threw a book launch where she made a signature cocktail with our local rum distillery, Kill Devil Rum’s honey pecan rum. She ran ads in local papers and radio. We got together and brainstormed ideas. She wrote letters to her friends at other independent bookstores and mailed out copies. She also carried copies and handed them out at SIBA, the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Alliance tradeshow. She’s told everyone that Beehive was the book to buy, and then O Magazine agreed with her, listing it as one of their top ten books in their May issue.

Last year, right after Lost in the Beehive, came out I visited Quail Ridge Books for the second time. I seriously want to have a sleepover. Their bookstore is so vast, beautiful, and comfortable, it’s like Heaven to me. Recently, my son and I were in Raleigh for a tennis tournament, and at the top of my to-do list was to show him Quail Ridge.

Independent Bookstores offer something online sellers can’t provide: booksellers who read and care about books, who get to know their customers, who know what books to recommend to specific readers, a place to commune and listen to story time or spend an evening listening to authors read and speak, a place to discuss books. A place to turn your cell phone off and breathe.

These are a few of my favorite Indies!

Downtown Books, Manteo, NC

Ducks Cottage Books, Duck, NC

Picking Apples, Carter’s Mountain, VA

Island Bookstore, Kill Devil Hills, Duck, and Corolla, NC

Chop Suey Books, Richmond, VA

Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, VA

New Dominion Bookshop, Charlottesville, VA

Chapters Bookshop, Galax, VA

Scuppernong Booksin Greensboro, NC

Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC

Fly Leaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC

Regulator Bookshop, Durham, NC

Park Road Books, Charlotte, NC

Outside New Dominion Bookshop, Charlottesville, VA

Malaprop’s Bookstore and Cafe, Asheville, NC

Aaron’s Books, Lititz, PA

Bards Alley, Vienna, VA

Word Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY

Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT

Market Street Bookshop, Mashpee, MA

Yellow Umbrella Books, Chatham, MA

Book Passage, San Francisco, CA

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Excerpt from Lost in the Beehive, a 2018 O Magazine Top Ten Book Pick

One afternoon, I went to the shed for a trowel. The honey bees trailed, flying through the doorway, swarming the ceiling. I grabbed the gardening gloves and looked up. More came. And more. There were thousands of them. “Is Sheff with you?” I asked, expecting an answer, as odd as that sounds. I watched and waited. They gathered in a T-shaped mass that framed the rafters, and I got down on my knees. Then, down on my back, the gardening gloves still in hand. I waited for them to say something. Rather, they came together, a gold-and-amber disco ball, bees zipping out from the spinning center, then descending, not falling, but aiming, a thousand bullets, on my skin. They were going to kill me, maybe finish what they started when I was seven, but then I felt their tiny fuzzy legs on my skin. My limbs vibrating with theirs. I slipped off my sneakers as the bees crowded onto my face and neck. I was not afraid. We hummed together. Their legs sticky on my eyelids. Ascending. Defying gravity. They felt like salvation. The sound had walls, tissue thin, and deep inside the cell, I saw Sheff shooting his arm into the air, a rocket, the bees flying out. We had our whole lives ahead of us. He straddled my red suitcase at the New York Public library. I shot my arm into the air. Then, saw that it was golden with bees. I heard a man’s voice, Jacob calling my name. The bees rose like sunlit dust.

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