Astra Writing in Greece is rooted in the understanding that the wellspring for good writing resides at the interface between experience and memory and in the awareness that travel, by generating experiences and evoking memories, replenishes the well. Our adventure takes place in the home of the Muses and homeland of legendary writers, among them Homer, Sappho, and Kazantzakis. Like them, you will be inspired and transformed by the sun-drenched landscape and glistening seas, the rich cultural history, and a people renowned for their hospitality.

Working with acclaimed author Meredith Hall, you will engage daily in two or more hours of guided and independent writing. You will work on threshing floors, in ancient courtyards, on beaches, and on the terrace of a seaside chapel reached by a 90-minute walk along a coastal trail. The program includes an informal meeting each day at sunset to reflect on your travel experience and to share the writing it generated.

Astra Writing in Greece is an eleven-day program beginning and ending in Athens and featuring a seven-day sojourn in Thordis Simonsen’s village, Elika. The road we travel between Athens and Elika crosses the rugged mountainous interior of the Peloponnese; during our stay in Elika we reside by the sea. En route to the village, we overnight in Mystras, a fortified town settled by the Franks in the thirteenth-century on a steep side-spur of Mount Taiyetos. Our week in Elika is punctuated by an overnight in a remarkable nearby fortified medieval town—the Mont-Saint-Michel of Greece and home of the renowned twentieth-century poet Yannis Ritsos. Our itinerary includes visits to select museums and historic sites, among them a tour of the Acropolis and the Benaki Museum in Athens and the Museum of the Olive and Greek Olive Oil in Sparta. Because walking and hiking are integral to the trip, participants must be comfortable walking/hiking rough paths in hilly terrain. Astra Writing in Greece is designed to ensure a balance between structure and spontaneity, between activity and serenity, between society and solitude.

Meredith Hall’s first book, the memoir Without a Map (Beacon Press 2007), is a New York Times bestseller. Hall won the 2005 Pushcart Prize with her first essay, also named a “Notable” in The Best American Essays 2005. She was awarded the $50,000 Gift of Freedom Award from A Room of Her Own Foundation that same year. She spent her grant period in San Francisco, where she wrote her memoir and started a collection of short stories and a novel. Her work has appeared on NPR and in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, The Southern Review, Kenyon Review, Fourth Genre, The Spoon River Poetry Review, and many other journals and anthologies. She writes reviews for the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. With her three sons, Hall cleared the land, designed, and built her home and barn on the coast of Maine. She is a writer-in-residence at the University of New Hampshire. www.meredithhall.org

In 1982, Thordis Simonsen received a grant from the Ella Lyman Cabot Trust for documentary work in a Greek village because she expressed “bravery” and “venturesomeness” when she diverged from teaching biology to design and teach a course in cultural anthropology and to edit the oral history You May Plow Here: The Narrative of Sara Brooks (Norton 1986). Her two-year sojourn in Elika culminated in the book Dancing Girl: Themes and Improvisations in a Greek Village Setting (Fundamental Note 1991). Since 1982, Thordis has lived alternately between Denver, Colorado and Elika. At the age of 40, in 1984, she purchased and subsequently single-handedly restored a roofless village house that had been used to stable sheep. She has conducted small-group excursions in Greece since 1995; she speaks the language fluently and knows the territory intimately. In 2007, Thordis received a grant from the Kittredge Educational Fund for the completion of her third book, a visual and literary autobiography. www.astragreece.com

We reside in ideally situated small family-operated establishments throughout. We usually picnic midday: markets, bakeries, and produce stands are available for provisions. We order from the menu or from cooking pots in the kitchens of the restaurants where we enjoy our evening meals. Vegetarians are easily accommodated.

The cost of the eleven-day Astra Writing in Greece program is $2850 (payable to astragreece inc.) plus uncovered meals ($250–$350) and airfare. Price is based on double occupancy; a single-room supplement will increase the land cost by $350. A deposit of $400 is due on acceptance into the program. Emergency evacuation insurance is mandatory. A formal application is required. Please inquire about scholarships.

For additional information about Astra Writing in Greece, please contact astragreece inc. at 303.321.5403 or info@astragreece.com.
In addition, please refer to Excursions and Sojourns on this site, particularly “special features,” “accolades,” “reading list,” “considerations,” and “terms & conditions.”