Date/Time
Date(s) - Mon 8th Dec - Sat 13th Dec, 2025
All Day
Location
Moniack Mhor, Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire , IV4 7HT
Immerse Yourself in Your Writing
Tutored Retreats start on a Monday evening with a welcome talk from staff at 6.30pm who will then join you for a meal. Your two tutors will lead an introductory session after dinner. Tutored Retreats have a stronger focus on the longer (up to one hour) one-to-one sessions with each of your tutors, providing more time for in-depth feedback on your work in progress. Evenings are often spent in the company of your group. Tutors will read from their own work on a Tuesday, and lead a sharing of your work at an informal ceilidh on Friday. A guest author usually joins you on Wednesday for dinner, followed by a reading from their work and a Q&A session.
Tutors
Louise Welsh is the author of ten novels including The Cutting Room, Plague Times Trilogy and To the Dogs. Louise has a ten-year practice in opera with composer Stuart MacRae. Their most recent opera, Anthropocene, originally commissioned by Scottish Opera, has enjoyed productions in the UK, Germany and Salzberg. She was co-director (with Jude Barber) of the Empire Café an award-winning exploration of Scotland’s relationship with the North Atlantic slave trade. She has received numerous awards and international fellowships, including honorary doctorates from Napier University and the Open University. Louise is Professor of Creative Writing at University of Glasgow and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of Literature.
Zoë Strachan is an award-winning novelist and librettist, who also writes short fiction, essays and plays, including for BBC Radio. She has a longstanding sound art collaboration with composer Nichola Scrutton, and has edited six anthologies of new writing. In 2020, Zoë was a judge for the Dublin International Literary Award, and her most recent novel, Catch The Moments as They Fly came out in 2023. She lives in Glasgow, where her day job is as Reader in Creative Writing at University of Glasgow.
Guest Reader
Francis Bickmore joined Canongate in 2000. He now works as Publisher at Large, based in Canongate’s Edinburgh office. He commissions and edits books and helps to devise and deploy Canongate’s Acquisitions strategy. As editor he has worked with writers including Yann Martel, Matt Haig, Louise Welsh, Lemn Sissay, Kevin Barry, Alasdair Gray, Mary Costello, James Meek, Nick Cave, David Byrne, David Lynch, Amy Liptrot and, posthumously, Leonard Cohen. In 2018 he joined the Canongate’s Board of Directors and he has also been a trustee of the Edinburgh International Book Festival and Edinburgh City of Literature.
Fees
The full fee for this course is £725. This includes your accommodation in a single room with shared bathroom, all meals, hot drinks and snacks from Monday afternoon until Saturday morning, and your tuition. For more information about the format and practicalities of our courses, tutored courses, and retreats, please visit our About the Residential Courses & Retreats page..
A limited number of en-suite rooms are available, which can be booked in advance for a £50 surcharge. We will also reserve an en-suite room for anyone who may need it due to a medical condition. This will be offered out as an upgrade nearer the course start date if it is not needed.
A limited number of Twin Room places are available at a discounted price of £675 per person. When booking a Twin Room place, please tell us in the comments box which gender you are and which gender(s) you are comfortable sharing a room with. This information will remain confidential.
A small single room with a skylight is available at a discounted price of £700. Please note this room does not have an ordinary window, only a small skylight.
A deposit is required to secure your place, which is non-refundable after a 14-day cooling-off period. The balance payment of £575 is due six weeks before the course begins. Refunds are not always available – please read our Terms & Conditions for full details about our cancellation policy. If you would like to pay the full amount in advance, please call our booking office on 01463 592 828 or email info@moniackmhor.org.uk.
Bursaries are always available, and you also have the option to pay in instalments. If you have any problems paying online, or wish to discuss paying in instalments or applying for financial help, or would simply like assistance, please contact us by emailing info@moniackmhor.org.uk or phoning us on 01463 592828.
Access
Please let us know in your booking form if you have any access requirements, for example a ground floor bedroom and / or access to a step-free accessible shower room. We also reserve one en-suite bedroom per course for anyone who may need this due to a medical condition. For more information about access to our courses, please visit our Access page.
Terms and Conditions
Please read our Terms & Conditions before booking.