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Revelations: A Writer’s Conference Can Be the Perfect Place to Vacation Inexpensively

You meet interesting people,
you stay at budget hotels

BY BETSY WIESENDANGER

Reprinted from
ARTHUR FROMMER’S BUDGET TRAVEL
July / August 2000

CAPE MAY, NEW JERSEY When one of Peter Murphy’s poems got “slaughtered” at a famous writer’s conference a few year’s back, he vowed to create an event where beginners could learn while keeping their egos intact. His “Winter Poetry and Prose Getaway,” now in its eighth year, offers a dozen workshops, including poetry writing for beginners, memoir, songwriting, and story telling, all taught by writers hand picked by Murphy for their compassionate approach. This isn’t the place to nitpick over manuscripts. Rather, the emphasis is on fueling your imagination and starting something new. Classes meet for an hour or so each morning, after which students disperse to complete an assignment. Lunch is followed by more classes in which the new works are discussed and (gently!) critiqued. Late afternoons are devoted to quiet writing time or a stroll along the winter beach.

The location is the informally funky Grand Hotel in Cape May, New Jersey, a lively coastal town 45 miles south of Atlantic City that’s stuffed with Victorian homes and antiques shops. The fee is $380 per person for a double room for three nights, $485 for a single, and includes all workshops plus breakfast and lunch served up in massive quantities buffet-style. Next year’s date is January 12-15, 2001. Contact Peter Murphy at 609-823-5076 or see www.wintergetaway.com.

Betsy Wiesendanger is a freelance writer in Cortlandt Manor, New York. Dika Lam contributed research to this article.