Quaker Writers’ Retreat at Pendle Hill

Travel directions to Pendle Hill. Please make sure to review our health and safety expectations at https://pendlehill.org/stay/covid-19-information/. If you’d like to join us for dinner before the event, please sign up at least 24 business hours in advance.

Join us in Pendle Hill’s sanctuary to center down and write in community with other Friends. Enjoy Pendle Hill’s library, art studio, walking trails, and communal meals, with time each evening to come together to worship or share your work as led. Janaki Spickard Keeler will have appointments available to discuss potential pamphlet manuscripts and offer feedback on pamphlet manuscripts in progress.  Rebecca Mays will also have appointments available for individual consultations.

This sojourn directly precedes the Friends General Conference Gathering (June 30-July 6, 2024), Rooted in Story, at Haverford College near Philadelphia.

Schedule

Beginning Thursday, friends are invited to Firbank Library any time after 9:15 AM to check in and get oriented.

Thursday – Opening Welcome, Introductions, and Worship
Friday – Janaki Spickard-Keeler: Introduction to Writing a Pendle Hill Pamphlet; Rebecca Mays: Writing Under a Religious Concern
Saturday – Reading and Sharing Work

Each day, attendees will meet for morning worship at 8:30 AM in the Barn, enjoy free writing time in the Pendle Hill Library, and come together for meals at 7:30 AM, 12:00 PM, and 6:00 PM in Main House where tables will be reserved for writers. In the evenings from 7:30-9:00 PM, we’ll come together for different activities each night.

Download the flyer to share with your community

Hosts

Frances Kreimer is Pendle Hill’s Education Director. She previously taught and directed Villanova University Law School’s Clinic for Asylum, Refugee, and Emigrant Services, focusing on mental health, trauma healing, and movement lawyering. She served as an Articles Editor of the N.Y.U. Law Review and is excited to welcome Quaker writers into Pendle Hill’s experiment in spiritual learning community.

Janaki Spickard Keeler, LCSW, is a lifelong Quaker, a writer, and a family therapist. As a clinical social worker, she unites writing with sacred change, helping people re-author the narratives of their lives in a direction that better fits their deep truths.

Janaki is the author of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Us: Using Family Systems Therapy to Understand and Dismantle Oppression (PHP #478). She stewards the Pendle Hill Pamphlets series of essays on Quaker perspectives on contemporary themes, serves her yearly meeting as coordinator of the Friends Counseling Service, and blogs occasionally at The Quietist Quaker. She is a member of Chestnut Hill Monthly Meeting (PYM).

Rebecca Mays is the Co-Editor and Managing Editor for the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. For ten years Rebecca taught a synoptic gospels class at Pendle Hill, and served for 20 years as the pamphlet series editor. During that time, she helped to found the PH book publishing program and, with other Quakers, founded Quakers Uniting in Publications, still a professional, international consortium. She has taught internationally and served on the Christian and Interfaith committee of the Friends General Conference, and has represented interfaith work at the 1998 Assembly of the World Council of Churches. She holds a B.A. in English from Earlham College, an M.A. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.A. in Religious Studies from Temple University.