A Week at Spannocchia: A Writers Retreat with Amazing People, Farm to Table Meals and Yes... an Unforgettable Pizza Night!
While you really can write anywhere, some places make it easier because they remove the noise. The Songs and Stories Retreat at Spannocchia allowed that in a quiet yet bustling practical way: you stay on site, eat on site, walk thru the day on site, and slowly let the week take shape around stories, meals, and the rhythm of the Tuscan countryside.
A 6-day writers gathering at Spannocchia,sponsored by Stories and Songs Writing Retreat, is not the kind of trip where you are a tourist rushing from one landmark to another. Once yoiu unpack, you are home.
We had an end of the castle room with one view overlooking the expanse of the farm, one side the courtyard and the back looking down to the eating patio. There was a writing desk and bookshelf with a collection of books on the hostory of Spannocchia and a few that had been written there.
Walking through the halls and stairs to the room,felt like you were back in feudal times, twist and turns with aged stone floors and worn steps the years had etched into them. Here, one learns the fastest paths between your room, the dining area, the writing spaces, and the fields. Tho, you learn to walk the paths slow. You begin to recognize the time of day by the light on the stone buildings,the smell of fresh cooked meals being prepared and the sound of people gathering for those meals. work here equals enjoyment.
The food is a large part of that rhythm. Meals are served on site, with an emphasis on organic, farm-grown ingredients. The food is not an afterthought here. It feels tied to the land around you. It taste like grandmas farm cooking. Granny would be proud.
And then there is Wednesday pizza night, the moment everyone seemed to talk about leading up to the night and surely afterward. It was relaxed, lively, and easily the most fun meal of the week.
Staying on site changes the pace of the week
The biggest gift of a 6-day retreat is that you do not have to keep deciding what comes next. We looked forward to meeting up over the meals or passing in the courtyard even the classes were an exciting time.
Staying on site at Spannocchia gives the week a gentle structure that a writer needs but loose enough for someone like me to feel in comtrol of my time.
That may sound simple, but it matters. At home, writing often has to compete. This kinda week, the day asks less of you. You can give more attention to the craft. Writing for me felt open and free , I sat at a desk overlooking fields where hundreds of years of life had taken place. One of the real life moments came when I realized I had walked and lived this week where memoirs and novels were written as well as music scores and songs were penned. Where you can be that writer you envisioned and take that home is the magic Spannochia held for us.
A typical day might begin with breakfast, then a morning writing session while the mind is still clear. Some writers like to set a word count. Others revise a chapter, draft an essay, or sketch scenes in a notebook. I sat with ideas that I had not been able to develop at home or even in Nashville. The muse here let me hear more for those thoughts. I wonder if that was the plan for me, travel and get the closure for perculating ideas. The setting does not write the pages for you, but it does help remove the usual excuses for not pursuing what should be.
By the second or third day, the place starts to feel familiar. Like you could give directions around to a stranger forgetting you were a starnger a few days back! Where you like to sit, where light hits your paper just right and which path makes a good thinking walk in the afternon.
The meals are part of the retreat, not just a break from writing
At Spannocchia, meals do more than feed they gather everyone back together for telling of what the muse dropped in your lap.
The retreat’s food is built around what the farm can provide,organic ingredients grown on site or connected to the estate’s agricultural life from surrounding farms. Instead of choosing from a long restaurant menu, you eat like at your grandma's, whatever she had,cooked and what she palced on the table. All done like she did ,with love.
Breakfast was simple, the kind of meal that helps you begin the day without too much fuss but it held a common time for us to get together before our classes. We drank coffee , coming, going visiting, sitting all the while tasting the tuscany buffet style start to our day.. We enjoyed some non-american traditional breakfast items like our usual bacon was replaced with fresh cut prosciutta and mozzeralla made on site. Boiled fresh eggs and hand squeezed apple and grape juice were available. Breads were abundant with local honey and jellies made on site. The organic yogurt was a hit, although much thinner than we were used to it was much more flavorful ( with some fresh honey and granola mixed in).
Lunch gives everyone a reason to pause and reset ... and have a little onsite made wine! There was usually a light entree protein, mostly chicken, with the freshest vegatables I've had in years.
Dinner feels more communal, still lighter fare with pastas and greens were abundant. After a day spent creating ... with an afternoon nap sprinkled in,talking over a meal was fun.
The best meals here were not the fanciest I've had but were some of the more flavorful. I thought then, as now, what a relaxing time as a platter was passed, someone asks what you worked on that morniing. Someone else admits they deleted more than they wrote, Another you barely knew on arrival suddenly becomes the one who understands exactly where you are stuck in a draft and you cant wait to sit next to them. One shares her heartbreak over an event back home that shapes the work she is on.
Wednesday pizza night brings everyone together
By Wednesday, all the writers had settled in. The first-day nerves were gone. we found our corners, learned the daily rhythm, and started to relax into the retreat. That made pizza night land at exactly the right time. Clay was right when he said this was to be the meal to remember.
Wednesday pizza night WAS the best meal of the week. Mainly for the laughter over the amazing pizza.
We started noticing the outside brick oven bhad been fired up as we treked between classes and writing spaces. Something about that smoke smell, was enticing. I
had to stop and ask what's for dinner, full well knowing it was pizza night and of course I was the only one laughing like an idiot at my own stupid dad joke. I did note this wasn't just a photo opp for the tourist, this is how its been done for centuries. A brick oven powered by wood collected from the farm, seasoning a pizza made with ingredients harvested on site is the grounding I needed in this fast paced get it now world we exist in.
There is something about pizza that lowers the formality of a group. We swapped stories and pizza plates around, tasting every one with a fervor not done at the football parties back home. Freshness was the mantra for this night. Clay Mills , one of our mentors, made sure we looked forward to this night with tales of the greatness of the meal laying on high exepctations ... he was right.
The earlier days of writing, thinking, and wrestling with difficult pages and concepts gave way to an lighter atmosphere. Pizza night in Spannochia changes your idea of what you ever thought pizza night at home was! I can't go through telling you how great spinach and mozzarella or pepperoni made on the farm mixed with some cheese I cant pronounce pizzas are, without telling you about the appetizers. Fois Gras .... not a fan. While I can appreciate the liver taste at home there was a texture here that left me wanting more wine to kill the taste. Maybe I wanted more wine! I did enjoy the garlic pesto bruschetta , again with wine. Think we are finding the commonality. Wine made and aged on site. No added sulfites no headaches no calories ( ok that last isn’t true but rest is ) makes for happy times.
The joy was not only the pizza itself, the feeling of everyone being gathered in one place with no pressure to produce anything. No one needed to explain a project although we did pass around our thoughts on where we sat in the processes that day no one needed to sound impressive we just had fun. again .... wine helps !
Those are the moments that turn a retreat from a scheduled program into a shared memory.
I will be sharing about the Open Mic nights in another blog, There were some amazing thoughts that were shared In this setting many unforgettable moments happen when writers of different genres share their lives in the evening.
Thanks to Karen and Clay Mills and Carolyn Flynn for all the work putting this together!
Check their retreats out and attend one ... or two! They hold em at various places each year you'll be pleased at your writing afterwords..
Trips You Take, Memories You Make
KISS ME THERE !
Randy
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