I love my house. I love its view of the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains. I love my mini-city with its great, local restaurants, trendy art galleries, artsy movie theater (that also plays blockbusters), and its culture of great music.

But sometimes, I simply need to get away.

I’ve always liked going places, but nearly three years of hiding from Covid left me too much of a homebody.

This year has been an improvement. I’ve been to Boston for a graduation, to Baltimore for a ballgame, to Richmond for a writers’ conference, and next week it’s off to Nelson County to the Porches Writers Retreat. In September I’ll be at a writers’ conference in Columbia, MD, and in November a book festival in Hanover, VA.

At Porches, I’ll be less than hour from my house, but it’s NOT my house.

I’ll also be in great company with three other writers. We came together as a group five or six years ago at Porches and decided to make it an annual thing. We missed 2020 because of Covid and tried ZOOMing instead. It wasn’t the same. Last year, we decided to let the New Englanders in the group not travel as far and met somewhat half-way at an AirBnB in Goshen, NY. That was great, but it wasn’t Porches.

A Unique Experience

Trudy Hale, who created this unique space from a dilapidated farm house, wanted space where writers who are introverts could work in solitude and without distraction and where those of us who are extroverts can be energized by the communal time of making meals together and sharing our work.

The views are beautiful but different for me because I’m not looking at the Blue Ridge Mountains; I’m among them. You’re out in the middle of nowhere, and at night you can hear anything from owls to fox and the occasional cattle. It’s very much like where I grew up, five counties to the north. Indeed, on one trip there, I had to stop my car and shoo a steer off the road and back into a field. Deja vu from my youth.

Each room at Porches (there are four in the main house plus a tiny house next to it) is themed and filled with books and literary journals on every spare space — classics, poetry, contemporary, genre. Even the kitchen has a floor to ceiling bookshelf. Each room also has a dedicated writing space, but there’s a living room and the kitchen where you can write as well. It’s call Porches because . . . Well, here’s why:

Both of these porches have several writing spots, if you want to write outside. The time of the year I usually go, August, it’s as hot as anywhere else in Virginia, so early morning or late afternoon are the best times for that. Each room is air conditioned, though, via window units, and the nights are generally cool enough you can turn them off.

I can’t wait to be there.

DIY Retreats

Trudy doesn’t organize any sort of formal retreat. Indeed, you seldom see her. This is a DIY writers retreat. You can stay in your room all day and time your meals so you don’t see anyone else, or you can be in your room morning and afternoon and meet up with others for lunch and dinner.

In the past before there was the five of us (now four this year), we’ve run into unknowns, other DIYers whose behavior was less than stellar. One time, I was cooking dinner for myself and the friend who’d joined me there, and a “gentleman” came in to cook his meal and moved the pan I was using to cook something off the stove. “This is my time to cook my dinner,” he said, “so I can get back to my work, and I don’t like sharing the stove.”

Well, he was up against two rather outspoken women, and he backed down. Trudy, however, assured us that he’d never be booked at the same time as us again. (Back when Porches didn’t have decent Wi-Fi and had a limited number of minutes on the satellite Internet, this guy also ate up all the minutes watching videos in his room. No, I didn’t want to know what kind, but I had my suspicions.)

But 99% of the times I’ve been there, the other writers have been more than collegial and eager to share work. My usual group of suspects, LOL, we like to read a section of what we wrote that day to each other after dinner. Then, the others critique and make suggestions. All extremely helpful.

And I’m not in my house.

If you’re a writer in Virginia or any of the nearby states, and you decide you need a DIY retreat, check out Porches HERE.