Writers have always come to Loutro so for a few weeks each year, not for profit travel outfit Espirita offers a dedicated Poetry and Writing programme within the inspiring natural resource of South West Crete - one of the most beautiful parts of Europe. The village of Loutro is intimate, ancient, friendly, and tranquil - equally good whether alone or in company. Loutro and its surrounding environment, serves as our centre. Bounded by this positive, liberating energy, our writing courses bring together people, experts, ideas and artistic creativity. Respect for individual space is central to the Loutro writing proposition and all writers are accommodated in their own en suite sea view rooms, situated variously around the small village.

'Follow the Creative - Return to the Creative'

Mimi Khalvati one of the most inspirational and revered Tutors of the Poetry world, has published eight collections with Carcanet Press, including ‘Child: New & Selected Poems’, a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation, and ‘The Meanest Flower’, shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Mimi is the founder of The Poetry School where she teaches. She received a Cholmondeley Award in 2006 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. A new collection of sonnets is forthcoming in 2019.

Lizzie Enfield is a journalist and regular contributor to national newspapers, magazines and radio, has written four novels and had short stories broadcast on Radio Four and published in various magazines. She also teaches at various universities and on the Creative Writing Programme in Brighton. Her latest novel Ivy and Abe published by Michael Joseph is written under the name Elizabeth Enfield.

Fiona Benson’s work includes Faber New Poets 1, Bright Travellers (winner of the Seamus Heaney Prize for First Collection, and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award) and a new collection 'Vertigo & Ghost', due out in January 2019 ( Cape ). She lives in Devon.

Lesley Glaister is the author of fourteen novels, most recently Little Egypt and The Squeeze. Her first young adult novel, Aphra’s Child was published in 2018. She’s also writes short stories, poetry and drama for stage and radio. Lesley currently teaches Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews


Tutored Retreats

Kathryn Maris is an American poet based in London whose most recent collection of poetry is The House With Only An Attic And A Basement (Penguin 2018). Her previous books include God Loves You and The Book of Jobs. Her work has appeared in Penguin Modern Poets 5, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, The Best British Poetry, The Forward Book of Poetry, Granta and Poetry. She teaches at the Poetry School and is the poetry editor of Mal.

Maurice Riordan was born in Lisgoold, Co. Cork, and lives in London. His most recent collection of poems is The Water Stealer (Faber, 2013). Among his previous collections are The Holy Land (2007), Floods (2000) and A Word from the Loki (1995). He edited The Finest Music (Faber, 2014), an anthology of early Irish poetry in translation. He is a former editor of The Poetry Review and is Emeritus Professor of Poetry at Sheffield Hallam University.


Tutored Retreats

Christopher Wakling - a prodigious writer, whose latest novel 'Escape And Evasion' was published by Faber & Faber in May this year. Other works include : What I Did, The Devil’s Mask, Towards The Sun, The Undertow, Beneath The Diamond Sky and On Cape Three Points. When not writing, he teaches creative writing courses for Curtis Brown Creative, The Arvon Foundation, and The Faber Academy. He writes travel journalism as well.

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