Celebrating Writer Success: Top Achievements from Our 2025 Writing Retreats

I asked you to share your writing successes and wow, what a year we've all had! From ideas, to chapters, to entire novels: here's just a handful of things our writers accomplished after attending either our day retreats for writers or our coffee morning for writers 'Prose and Pastries' this year:

Shelley, author and regular attendee of Prose and Pastries.

• Shelley completed her 22nd novel (yes, 22, you read that correctly!) Multi-talented and having written several genres of novel, you can find her website here: https://shelleywilsonauthor.com/

• Poppy attended our very first January retreat and her novel 'Sepoy' was long listed for the 2025 Bridport Prize. You can follow her on Instagram at @dr_poppy_writesforlove

• Kerry usually writes Romantasy but completed the first draft of a high fantasy novel. You can find her website here: https://www.kerrywilliamsauthor.co.uk/

Kerry, author and regular attendee of Prose and Pastries.

• Oscar attended our retreat at Guy's Cliffe House in June 2025 and is also a regular attendee of Prose and Pastries. He was awarded a place on the much sought after Room 204 writer development programme with Writing West Midlands.

• Katie attended our retreat at the West Midlands Police Museum in July 2025 and is also a regular attendee of Prose and Pastries. She completed the novel she has been working on as part of her Creative Writing MA.

• Mart has attended almost every Secret Writing Retreats event this year. When asked, he said, the greatest thing that he has taken away from attending this year (aside from writing a lot of words!) was finding his own authentic voice and style for his writing.

Mart, author and regular attendee of our retreat days for writers.

And lastly, there is my own writing! I don't always get time to write at events as I'm often facilitating them but I do try to join writers, even for a short time, to write. This year, I've managed to complete the first draft of my romantic thriller novel and of course, my proudest achievement is setting up Secret Writing Retreats to help others.

If there's one thought I'd like to leave you with, its this:

This time last year neither my draft, or Secret Writing Retreats existed! A lot can happen in a year so don't procrastinate, get writing! And if you want to join us in January to start 2026 off with a bang then check out our event with guest author Liam Brown, 'Stop Dreaming, Start Writing.'

Lastly, a huge thank you to everyone who has attended an event this year or who has supported Secret Writing Retreats on social media.

Keep writing!

Love Jen.