Writing Journeys: Prague | St. John | Australia

A Writer’s Journey to Australia

Australia and its surrounding islands are some of the most beautiful and rare places on earth. Hollowdeck Press will offer its annual 2.5-week Writer’s Journey to Australia as an invitation for working writers to explore this vast and magical part of the Southern hemisphere.

Students will fly into Melbourne, on the southern tip of the continent. Melbourne is Australia’s second largest city in the country, a green, urban, port city filled with parks, museums, outdoor concerts and millions of places discover on your own. Students will be housed in serviced, furnished, double-occupancy executive apartments in the city. Each apartment includes a kitchen, laundry facilities and a full bath.

Daily classes will be held as we travel throughout the city, writing on-site. We will visit The Royal Botanical Gardens where we will have Devonshire Tea by the lake, stroll the tree-lined Collins Street, relax in Fitzroy Gardens where we will see Captain Cook's Cottage, and explore the Queen Victoria Markets. We will write at the historic Shrine of Remembrance, amidst the peaceful Kings Domain Gardens. We will also delve into Melbourne’s history, learning about the ancient traditions of the aboriginal people, the modern history of the European settlers, and the role that writing, arts and literature have played in Australia’s cultural and political identity. We will investigate some of the city’s architectural splendors, including St. Paul's Cathedral and the Melbourne Town Hall.

After spending a week in Melbourne, we will fly as a group to Flinders Island, a small, pristine island off the coast of Tasmania where we will spend the second week of our Journey. From the urban, cultured atmosphere of Melbourne, we will dive into the wilds of Flinders, one of the last unspoiled places on earth, a place of great quiet and profound stillness where tangled ancient forests taper down to the vast, untouched sea. It is a calm and profoundly quiet escape, a wonderful place to write.

While on Flinders Island, we will stay at the Healing Dreams Retreat Center, in luxury accommodations, including private en-suite rooms, a Jacuzzi on the large deck, laundry facilities, a small gym and three gourmet meals a day. Yoga and massage will also be available. Surrounded on three sides by the National Park, Healing Dreams also has an organic farm and sits in the shadow of a huge, sacred mountain. Daily classes will be held in the living room at Healing Dreams, where we will write together, experiment, talk, laugh and read to one another. We will write in deep woods, sacred groves, barren beaches and in the presence of an infinite variety of wildlife, from wild birds to wombats to millions of kangaroos. Healing Dreams has plenty of private spaces in which to read, write, make visual art or daydream in peace.

After our week in Flinders, we will fly back to Melbourne and relax for a few days before returning to the States.

The writing faculty for this Journey will be Lisa Birman, MFA. Lisa is a native of Melbourne Australia who has lived, worked and taught in the United States for over 15 years. For more information, please see Lisa’s faculty bio.

We schedule our Journey in October/November, just as summer in Australia is beginning. Tuition for this Journey is $3800. It includes the 16-day writing class, housing for one week in Melbourne, transportation to and from the airport, round-trip airfare from Melbourne to Flinders Island, housing and meals for one week at the Healing Dreams Retreat Center on Flinders Island, as well as orientation and class materials

Students are responsible for round-trip airfare from the US to Melbourne, travel and medical insurance, meals in Melbourne and other personal expenses.

There is a $900 non-refundable deposit due at registration. Payments can be made by cash, money order or check made out to Hollowdeck Press, LLC. Sorry, we are not able to accept credit cards. Registration is limited and we anticipate that this Journey may fill quickly, so please give us a call as soon as possible.

For more information, view or print our current flyer (PDF).