Go and Write! with Dr. Gerard Collins and Jane Simpson
Award-winning Newfoundland author Gerard Collins, who now lives in New Brunswick, and Jane (Janie) Simpson, also a New Brunswicker, offer creative writing retreats for those who find inspiration in travel.
In advance of our retreats, you’re invited to submit a piece of writing on which Gerard provides written commentary. During the retreat, we’ll enjoy inspiring writing sessions and group discussions, share magical evening readings, and get focused with stretches of dedicated, quiet writing time. Jane arranges our accommodations, coaches, and tours from knowledgeable, local guides, and she helps to ensure things run smoothly.
Together, we arrange fabulous accommodations, time and space to write, and opportunities to experience local culture, everywhere we go.
WHY GO AND WRITE WITH US
I am very impressed with Gerard’s writing skills and ability to teach. He is not only approachable, he approaches with wisdom and kindness and provided information that I immediately applied to my writing… Thank you, Gerard and Janie, for a wonderful week of writing. ~ L.F.
For more notes from past participants, visit our general “About Us” page.
Gerard Collins, PhD, MA, BA, BEd
Gerard, who has his PhD in American Gothic Literature, is a Newfoundland writer now living in New Brunswick, whose first novel, Finton Moon, was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, the Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage and History Award, and won the Percy Janes First Novel Award. In 2019, he turned the Finton Moon experience into a multi-media art exhibition, “The Book that Wrote Itself.” His short story collection, Moonlight Sketches, won the Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award, and his second novel, The Hush Sisters, won an international Next Generation Indie Book Award in the suspense category and also was a finalist in the paranormal category.
Gerard has won numerous arts and letters awards for fiction, published in journals and anthologies, garnered arts grants, and his work has been taught in multiple university courses and placed in high school learning resource centres across Newfoundland and Labrador.
A lecturer at Memorial University for two decades and an occasional lecturer at University of New Brunswick, Gerard is an experienced leader of retreats and inspiring writing sessions in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Gerard has been invited as a featured workshop leader with the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick, Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador, the prestigious Piper’s Frith in Newfoundland, and Lily Daly Assembly in New York. He has delivered multiple workshops to high school students, and in 2017, Gerard was invited to deliver a lecture to Masters in Creative Writing students at Newcastle University, UK, as well as a public reading at the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts. Most recently, Gerard was invited to teach a Masterclass in creative writing by the Northrup Frye Festival as well as the Louisiana Book Festival.
Gerard regularly serves on juries of writing and granting competitions while mentoring writers who show great promise, and all three of his books have been placed in libraries around the world. Visit Gerard’s website to learn more.
Jane Simpson, BA
Jane, or Janie, is an award-winning writer and the founding executive and artistic director of the Arts and Culture Centre of Sussex, where she worked from 2016-2023 until she left to focus on her writing.
Janie’s stories have been published in Grain Magazine and Riddle Fence, and she recently received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the New Brunswick Arts Board to complete the first draft of her current project, a novel set on White Head Island, New Brunswick, where she spent much of her childhood.
Visit Jane’s website to learn more.
To meet us virtually, check out the interview we did in the spring of 2023 with Kathryn Taylor Media: