Please join us to celebrate the onset of Summer and draw energy and connection from nature and an awesome group of women, in one of the most spectacular natural areas in the region.  Red Clover Ranch is nestled in the hills of the Driftless, a unique area of the Midwest known for its beautiful vistas, unusual topography, organic food, hiking and biking trails, excellent trout fishing and welcoming people. 

This retreat is meant to be both energizing and relaxing, so we’ve organized a schedule of activities that balance the two.  Retreat programming includes canoeing, hiking, guided stargazing, yoga and breathwork, and plenty of unscheduled time to reflect and rest. All activities will be facilitated, but our primary goal is to create a space that promotes self care, so participation is optional. 

This retreat is also meant to be a space of communion and connection. With so much responsibility and change in our lives, we know how important it is to make space for rest and reflection.  We also know that creating space to intentionally connect with others and with nature can help us process and support each other through these shifts.  Please reach out if you have any questions or want to learn more about the planned activities.  We welcome cis women, non-cis women, non-cis men, non-binary and gender fluid individuals.

Sample Schedule:

Friday - Arrive anytime after 3pm

Yoga (daily asana, meditation and breathwork practices)

Hike

Dinner

Sauna

Saturday

Yoga (daily asana, meditation and breathwork practices)

Breakfast

Canoe Trip with Packed Lunch

Rest/Free Time/Sauna 

Dinner 

Guided Stargazing with Driftless Astronomer John Heasley

Sunday

Yoga (daily asana, meditation and breathwork practices)

Breakfast

Hike at Wildcat Mountain State Park

Lunch 

Yoga (daily asana, meditation and breathwork practices)

Rest/Free Time

Dinner

Sauna

Monday - Depart at 11am

Yoga (daily asana, meditation and breathwork practices)

Breakfast 

Departure

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Retreat Facilitators:

Elise Zelechowski

Originally from Chicago, Elise now lives in the Driftless where she’s working on bringing equitable energy resources to rural communities.  She's also farming on 20 acres of land near Red Clover Ranch, making wine and cider as Las Mujeres. She spends her free time exploring the nature around Southwest Wisconsin and volunteering with local organizations to conserve it.

Elizabeth Shaw

Elizabeth is a coach, outdoorswoman, yogi and traveler. After fifteen years of executive leadership in public education systems, Elizabeth now works with mission-driven leaders as an executive coach, facilitator and strategic advisor. She supports clients to lead with their intuition, notice their body’s wisdom, root in the collective, and reconnect with the natural world. Elizabeth lives with her partner and four children in Chicago, and is a yoga teacher and a NOLS-certified Wilderness First Responder.

Join us for a fun-filled long weekend of cycling, community with new friends, farm-to-table food, and both on and off-bike exploration of the Driftless. The rides will be guided, no-drop (unless you wish to go it alone), and fully supported by our professional mechanics/ride leaders Lauren Wiscomb and Thomas Kehrer. After a day of wandering valley roads and rolling green hills, you’ll return to the comfort of Red Clover Ranch and all it has to offer.  We’ll fuel your weekend with nourishing meals made by our talented chef Dani Lind from the freshest local ingredients. You can spend your afternoons and evenings hiking our trails, recovering in the sauna or checking out the stunning night sky by the campfire. A good book and a fabulous screen porch is, of course, also an option. We welcome you to tell us what your cycling skill level is and we can tailor our rides to the needs of the group. The topography of the Driftless is challenging, but we have a huge variety of routes.  We’ll stop by the swimming hole and other spots on our ride.

Day 1:

Arrival - Get settled into your room. Bring bike to mechanic area. Our pro mechanics will give a your bike a once over to ensure it’s ready to roll

Welcome Cocktail/Mocktail Hour - Enjoy a welcome seasonal drink and appetizers. Meet your fellow bikers and your team leads.

Dinner on the screen porch - Seasonal salads and pizza’s cooked in our brick oven (gluten free, vegan and vegetarian options available on request)

Campfire

Day 2:

Breakfast and Coffee and Tea - We will fuel you up for a morning of riding

Ride the hills and valleys of the Driftless (25-40 miles)

Come back to the Ranch for lunch or we’ll have lunch on the road

Spend the afternoon on the ranch - sauna, hike, lay in the field, go to the swimming hole, explore area sites, etc

Dinner at the Ranch

Evening Activity TBA

Day 3:

Breakfast and Coffee and Tea - We will fuel you up for a morning of riding

Ride the hills and valleys of the Driftless (25-40 miles)

Come back to the Ranch for lunch or we’ll have lunch on the road

Spend the afternoon on the ranch - sauna, hike, lay in the field, go to the swimming hole, explore area sites, etc

Dinner at the Ranch

Evening Activity TBA

Day 4:

Morning yoga

Hearty brunch to send you on your way

This ride is for beginners and intermediate riders. People who want to challenge themselves in a supportive community. The rides will be between 25-50 miles and there will be 2 options (shorter and longer) ride options daily.

There are both single and shared rooms available. Let us know if you have a preferred roommate for shared rooms. Your weekend includes all meals,  morning coffee and tea service, bike support, guided rides, and Sunday morning yoga, and more. Space is limited. Payment plans available. Questions? Email hello@redcloverranch.com

About the Bike Team 

Lauren Wiscomb

Some time ago, Lauren started keeping a bicycle around her nearly all the time and she has rarely regretted it. She fell into this habit as a city commuter in Chicago and found a job as a bicycle mechanic. Since then, her love of the bike has taken her around the country on a year long bike tour, around the world as a mechanic in the pro peloton, and still takes her to work year-round, every day. She has recently decided (with her partner Thomas and their collective stable of bicycles) to call the Driftless home, in no small part, because it is one of her all-time favorite places to ride

Thomas Kherer

Thomas loves nothing more than bringing people together to ride bikes. For over a decade, Thomas has been embarking on bicycle adventures that have led to traveling the world, making new friends, and countless lasting memories. His passion for these experiences inspired him to volunteer with several cycling-focused organizations and to pursue a professional career within the bicycle industry. When he’s not riding bikes, you can find Thomas identifying the local flora and fauna, paddling the river, or finding the perfect Driftless swim spot.

MIDSUMMER SPLENDOR | Join writer, photographer, folk herbalist, and mother Alyson Morgan in the stunning Driftless region of Wisconsin to nourish ourselves in supportive community. In rituals and practice to celebrating the earth, the sun, and the moon at the Summer solstice. This all inclusive retreat will be accompanied by delicious, beautiful meals crafted by the amazing Chef Dani Lind with locally sourced ingredients. All meals are included in the price.

This retreat is an invitation to slow down, to indulge in Midsummer Splendor through your senses rooted in plant magic and community. Come explore midsummer’s floral splendor in the Heart of the Driftless guided by herbalist and author Alyson Morgan and breath work practices and embodiment with acupuncturist and break work guide Amy Kuretsky on this 3 night retreat. 

This retreat features

• Private and Shared Room lodging options. For shared rooms we will assign you a roommate if you are coming alone.

• All meals + welcome mocktail/cocktail, and morning Wonderstate coffee and Rishi tea bar

• Tune into the seasonal energetics of summer exploring with our plant guides: elderflower, rose, and yarrow

• Connect deeply with nature through plant walks, the art of foraging, and learning how to wildcraft with intention.

• The art of noticing | Learn somatic techniques to attune to the seasons and the cycles of the natural world for creative inspiration, building inner trust + rejuvenating your body and mind.

• Enlivening group breathwork sessions with Amy Kuretsky

• Craft Herbal Preparations | Learn to make a floral preparations, herbal bundles, foot soak, herbal shrubs and a summer tea blend.

• Floral crafting workshop.

• Full Moon Circle to gather in community with the Strawberry Moon in Cancer | Featuring intention setting, sharing in a safe space, and gratitude practices.

• A guided yoga nidra practice.

The summer solstice is a potent time of the year to honor the sun, how it nourishes the earth and our bodies. Midsummer rituals and celebrations feature prominently in many folk traditions. Embrace this opportunity to connect with our roots. 

Join Anna Argeropoulos and Parisa Shirazi Chavoya of Moving Galaxy Yoga and Mindful Movement in Milwaukee for a long weekend of yoga, Saturday night sound bath, amazing food, and the beauty of the Driftless. This retreat includes:

3 nights, 4 days accommodations

• Welcome cocktail/mocktail on Thursday

• Three meals Friday and Saturday

• Send-off hearty breakfast on Sunday

• Daily yoga & mindfulness practices with Anna

• Yin and yoga nidra with Parisa on Friday

• Sound Bath with Parisa on Saturday

• Sauna, hiking, campfires, rest time, nature, good company, and more!

Anna Argeropoulos 

ERYT-500, CPT, Animal Flow L1 

Anna is a 500-Hour ERYT with 20 years of teaching experience. She is passionate about movement in all forms, and believes it to be the secret to a life well-lived. 

Anna weaves down-to-earth philosophy, creativity, laughter, exploration, and devotional chanting into every class she creates, and is happiest when among the trees and in the water. From her deep connections to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Anna has cultivated reverence, love and respect for Scandanavian sauna culture that she can’t wait to share with you. 

Expect to feel both challenged and grounded in Anna’s yoga classes, with options totake or leave anything that comes along. She loves to provide nourishing hands-onassists with every class, and retreats are the perfect time for her to focus on that.

Parisa Shirazi Chavoya 

M.Ed. RYT 200 and Sound Healer 

Parisa Shirazi Chavoya is a certified yoga teacher, sound healer and curator of Parisa Yoga Shala. Parisa finds joy in supporting others in exploring their mind, body, and spirit through trauma-informed embodiment practices. She’s especially passionate about working with beginners and individuals with chronic pain conditions! 

Parisa comes from a long lineage of Iranian dancers, musicians, singers and artists.Drawing together her love for teaching and music, she found her way to sound therapy!She loves using the power of her voice and healing vibrations to guide people into a meditative and calm state of being

Join us for a long weekend at The Ranch for The 4th of July Weekend.

Bring a crew and stay with us for a weekend of Driftless fun. 

Weekend Package Includes:

- Check in Thursday (4th of July) 3pm or after. [July 3rd lodging add-on available]

- Lodging (Price is per person, however rooms are double occupancy. Please make sure to book for the number of people coming! )

- Sauna time 

- Complimentary LOW ABV cocktail or mocktail before dinner on Thursday night

- Thursday Dinner

- Friday Breakfast and WonderState Coffee and Tea Bar

- Friday Dinner

- Saturday breakfast and Wonderstate Coffee and Rishi Tea Bar

- Spend the day exploring The Beauty of The Driftless (Canoeing,  

   Biking, Hiking, Antiquing, Explore the Cute Town of Viroqua). We'll 

   give you a list! Or stay at the farm and relax, take a hike on one of 

   our trails, lounge on a porch, take a nap, etc

- Saturday Night Special Farm Dinner by Chicago's Txa Txa Club 

   This meal is open to the community as well

- Dance Party in The Barn Loft with Jamie Hayes

- Sunday morning breakfast (Check out is at 11am)

SATURDAY NIGHT FARM DINNER:

We are so so happy to welcome back Chicago's dynamic duo TXA TXA Club a Chicago supper club whose food style is playful yet intentional, integrating vast culinary influence with local, seasonal ingredients. Their dinner at Red Clover last year was one of the highlights of the season. They will delight your senses with the food they create.

As part of your weekend stay, TXATXA and Chef Dani Lind will be teaming up to create a special 4th of July community Farm Dinner on Saturday night. The dinner experience will feature a 5-course meal and is sure to be an extraordinary evening of connection and community inspired by the local bounty of Wisconsin’s Driftless region. As part of their supper club , TXATXA Club always curates their dinners around a theme. Read below for this weekend’s theme:

CONSTELLATION: THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

For the beginning of the dog days of summer, the sultry season when the star system Sirius appears in the night sky just before the sun, we’ll be harnessing the heat and celebrating hot takes on hot American holiday classics. 

During the weeks between July 3 and August 11, the binary star Sirius—when one star revolves around another, or the two do-si-do around a common center—shines bright in the sky, forming the constellation of Canis Major, signifying a period of intense and feverish heat. 

It’s a time to revel in the meteorological craze, to dine and dance in the delirium of the sweltering heat. TXA TXA Club is heading back to Red Clover Ranch in beautiful driftless Wisconsin for a Fourth of July weekend of wayfaring and holiday fare. You can expect some reimagined classics like woodfire bbq ribs and funnel cakes, and everything in between. And while a constellation is the convening of stars—this dinner will be the a constellation of radiant Midwest movers and shakers. 

Topping off Saturday night DJ Jamie Hayes will be hosting a dance party in the barn loft. Dance the night away, sit by the campfire with friends new and old, or go to bed early.. it’s going to be a great weekend so join us!

FAQ:
Can I bring my pet? - We love dogs but for the animals that live on the property we can't have pet guests.

What should I bring? - We will send you a suggested list prior to arrival?

Do you accommodate Vegan and Vegetarian diets? - Yes we do!

How does the Lodging work? - If you are coming with people please let us know and we will house you together. We have a mix of room types - 2 twin beds, 1 queen bed, and 1 king bed. All rooms are double occupancy except the Bunkhouse. Please let us know you preference. Rooms are double occupancy if coming in a group

Are Fireworks allowed? - No fireworks are not allowed.

I have questions! - Please reach out to hello@redcloverranch.com

Join Tattoo Artist and Artist Esther Garcia and Artist Rebekka Federle-McCabe in the rolling hills of the Driftless for a weekend of reconnecting with nature and exploring the delicate but simple craft of cut-paper floral illustration.

They’ve taken our inspiration for this getaway from Mrs. Mary Delaney (1700-1788), a self-taught “paper-mosaick“ maker who didn’t discover her passion for collaged botanical illustration until she was 72 years old (!). Her vivid and detailed tissue paper collages were praised by botanists of the day, and nearly 1000 of them are housed in the British Museum as part of the permanent collection. Despite such an honor, her tools were simple and her enjoyment in her work clear and apparent, and we will partake in these together.

We’ve designed this retreat to be equal parts relaxing and instructive and it requires no prior art-making experience. If Mary could, we can. 

Rebekka Federle-McCabe and Esther Garcia, and we will guide you step-by-step as we pick wildflowers and foliage to illustrate in Mary’s style. We have designed the instructive part of our weekend to accommodate any level of art-making confidence.  You’ll learn color mixing and matching, composition, and scissor skills in a relaxed environment with generous instructors. There will be plenty of room for play, gorgeous meals and wandering goats. Together we’ll work toward the goal of creating a beautiful keepsake of the weekend for you to take home. 

Come alone, or come with a friend; this is a magical place and we promise you won't forget the visit soon. Space is limited, vegetarian and vegan diets welcome, and payment plans available.

Rebekka Federle-McCabe

Rebekka Federle is an internationally-shown artist who is as much known for her clever and ultra-detailed collage works as for her sass and good humor, and we'll have the good luck to enjoy both her company and her skill as an instructor. She adores teaching and has previously taught collage at the Peters Valley School of Craft, and is currently gaining her MFA at the University of Chicago.  

Esther Garcia

Award-winning tattoo artist Esther Garcia is Chicago’s premier color queen and unmatched botanical enthusiast. You’ll get the opportunity to tap into her years of experience creating colors that mimics nature, her terrific compositional abilities, and her general generous loveliness. Ask her about her cats. 

The Flowers of Red Clover Ranch

The Art of Noticing Watercolor Painting Retreat with Leslie Baum. 

Explore the landscape of the Driftless. Attune to the late summer light and how your experience of the landscape shifts with the time of day. Paint in morning, afternoon, dusk, and evening.  

This 3 night plein air painting retreat includes guided and independent painting time, opportunities to share work, morning yoga, and an evening of star gazing with a local astronomer. Explore plein air painting as an expansive pursuit, one that encompasses more than rendering a view. Embrace the creative potential of noticing our environment, slowing down, and being present. Leslie will provide prompts and invitations to guide your painting – helping to cultivate a personal painterly approach. The focus will be on imaginatively responding to what the landscape evokes - the sensations, memories, images -and how that shifts from morning to evening.

There are both single and shared room available. Fee includes all meals, welcome cocktail/mocktail,  morning coffee and tea service, instruction and guidance form Leslie Baum, morning yoga, and naturalist visit. Space is limited. Payment Plans Available.

About Leslie Baum

Seeing is a subjective experience. As a teacher or a making guide, Leslie seeks to help people explore their own unique way of seeing.

When working in plein air, there is often a desire to capture all the beauty and complexity of the landscape. However, it is also can overwhelm both painter and a painting. Her approach is to encourage the letting go, to engage in creative play, and to arrive at what is essential.
 
Why plein air or painting outside? It's dynamic. Clouds go by, light changes, time passes. It's instructive to put yourself in the position where you don't have all the control and you are in collaboration with what you are viewing. There is a deep personal value and enrichment in being outside in a multi-sensory way.  Hearing, listening, and going deep in a moment. You enter a flow state. It's so good for us.

The Art of Noticing Watercolor Painting Retreat with Leslie Baum. 

Explore the landscape of the Driftless. Attune to the late summer light and how your experience of the landscape shifts with the time of day. Paint in morning, afternoon, dusk, and evening.  

This 3 night plein air painting retreat includes guided and independent painting time, opportunities to share work, morning yoga, and an evening of star gazing with a local astronomer. Explore plein air painting as an expansive pursuit, one that encompasses more than rendering a view. Embrace the creative potential of noticing our environment, slowing down, and being present. Leslie will provide prompts and invitations to guide your painting – helping to cultivate a personal painterly approach. The focus will be on imaginatively responding to what the landscape evokes - the sensations, memories, images -and how that shifts from morning to evening.

There are both single and shared room available. Please let us know if you have a preferred roommate for shared. Fee includes all meals, welcome cocktail/mocktail,  morning coffee and tea service, instruction and guidance form Leslie Baum, morning yoga, and naturalist visit. Space is Limited. Payment Plans Available.

About Leslie Baum

Seeing is a subjective experience. As a teacher or a making guide, Leslie seeks to help people explore their own unique way of seeing.

When working in plein air, there is often a desire to capture all the beauty and complexity of the landscape. However, it is also can overwhelm both painter and a painting. Her approach is to encourage the letting go, to engage in creative play, and to arrive at what is essential.
 
Why plein air or painting outside? It's dynamic. Clouds go by, light changes, time passes. It's instructive to put yourself in the position where you don't have all the control and you are in collaboration with what you are viewing. There is a deep personal value and enrichment in being outside in a multi-sensory way.  Hearing, listening, and going deep in a moment. You enter a flow state. It's so good for us.

Join pastry chef Emily Spurlin and photographer Laura Scherb for a restorative and inspiring weekend at Red Clover Ranch. Sunbaked is a collaborative retreat focused on storytelling through food and photos. Every summer, Nature offers her bounty to us, and as creatives, we felt called to create a space to respond to that in the form of art, both the edible and the visual. We know you will be just as captivated as we are by the breathtaking natural beauty and agricultural abundance of the Driftless region of Wisconsin.

• Cake tutorial

  Instruction for making your own seasonally-inspired, naturally colored layer cake from Emily Spurlin

• Photography tutorial

  Instruction on capturing storytelling in photography—iPhone, DSLR camera, or sketchpad!— from Laura Scherb

• Local grains seminar

  Seminar on heritage grains from Halee of Meadowlark Organics

• Baking supplies

  All baking tools, supplies, and ingredients to make your cake will be provided.

• Field trips

  Excursions to farmers markets, antique stores, and nature walks to forage for flavor components

Like always you will also be lodged in our lovely accomodations, be fed from our farm to table kitchen, and full use to wander our grounds, play a game on our screen porch, take a sauna, or dip your feet in the creek.

Emily Spurlin is a chicago- based award winning pastry chef, florist, and artist. Emily uses pastry as a medium to tell stories and translate inspiration into reality, especially focusing on the natural world as her muse. Laura Scherb is a food photographer, stylist, and writer in Chicago, IL. She works in every capacity of food photography, from commercial work to editorial projects. Her passion is storytelling through light and color, and is particularly interested in shadow work.

They are back! Join authors and teachers Amy Shearn and Sarah McColl for the Red Clover Ranch Writing Retreat.

Participants in last year’s inaugural Red Clover Ranch Writing Retreat described the experience as magical, nourishing, and life-changing. Retreat participants have collaborated creatively, published books, flown cross-country to attend said book launches, started and revised novels, launched their own retreats…and that’s just the stuff we know about. In other words, we’re up to more than writing on this weekend and the aftereffects travel home and into real life.

This 3-night retreat includes locally sourced farm-to-table meals and cabin (or bunkhouse) accommodations at the Red Clover Ranch in the Driftless region of Wisconsin.

Red Clover’s cabins offer simple and thoughtful sleeping spaces and share a communal bathhouse with two full bathrooms, outdoor shower, sauna, and shared porch. To help you unplug and get quiet, there is no wifi in the cabins. Shared writing spaces include the Bathhouse Lounge and three separate spaces in the Barn. 

Participants can take part in two generative writing workshops, one led by memoirist Sarah McColl and one led by novelist Amy Shearn, as well as afternoon conversations and activities designed for inspiration and supportive practice. There will be open time to go deep into your own writing, explore the two mile-long trails at the Ranch, sweat it out in the sauna, or just stare off into space. Writers can also choose to have 1:1 consultations with Sarah and/or Amy if they’d like another set of eyes on their work.

This time together, and the place where we will gather, originated in creative spark and supportive relationship. Sarah and Annie have been friends for more than ten years. Amy and Sarah have been admirers of each other’s work for fifteen years. Annie and Dani’s friendship was born in this valley, where they thoughtfully hold feminine space. The Red Clover Ranch Writing Retreat is open to women, non-binary, and gender-non-conforming writers of all levels and genres. The focus will be on connecting to that vital force that is creativity and coming away feeling reenergized and whole.

This retreat might be for you if you:

• Crave supportive creative community

• Daydream about quiet time to read, write, and think

• Enjoy generative workshops and the company of other writers

• Can’t get away from kids/work/life for longer retreats

• Love super-nourishing local foods prepared and served with artistry and care

• Swoon over a starry sky

• Dig saunas and Ursa Major bath products

This retreat probably isn’t for you if:

• You don’t like smart, frisky little dogs (there’s one named Banjo)

• Aren’t comfortable walking distances of 50 yards on gravel

• Have really strict conditions under which you can write

• Can’t stand the cold (many of the shared writing spaces are outdoors or on screened porches)

• Aren’t into sharing a bathroom (even if it does have those Ursa Major products)

• A weekend alone in an airbnb is what you really need

The Food

Eating well is a way of life at Red Clover Ranch. You will be welcomed to the ranch with a cocktail (low- and no-ABV options available). At breakfast and lunch, writers have the option to sneak off with their meal to read, write, or have a solo picnic in the wild apple orchard. (We get it. Writers need alone time.) In the evenings, we’ll dine communally on Chef Dani Lind’s seasonally inspired meals, largely sourced from surrounding farms. 

The Place

Home to organic farms, artists, musicians, and other makers, the Driftless is a unique and bewitching place. Bypassed by the last glacier that flattened other areas of the upper Midwest, the region offers a dramatic ancient landscape of craggy rock faces, narrow valleys, steep hills, and forested ridges. It’s a place to embrace quiet, take deep breaths, and watch the fog lift. The  land is the ancestral home of the Ho-Chunk and Potawatomi nations.

The nearest airports are Madison and La Crosse, Wisconsin. You can also fly in and drive from Minneapolis-St. Paul or Chicago, both about 3.5 hours away.

About Us

Sarah and Amy are both working writers, teachers, and mothers, who know just how restorative it can be when writers get together to reactivate their creative powers. 

Sarah McColl is the author of the debut memoir, Joy Enough (Liveright Publishing/Norton, 2019). She also writes Lost Art, a monthly newsletter about the creative work of (mostly) dead women.

Her essays have appeared in Paris Review, McSweeney's, StoryQuarterly, Departures and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell, where she was named the 2017 Mary Carswell Fellow, the Millay Colony for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Wrangell Mountains Center, and a Pushcart Prize nominee for her essay on singer-songwriter Connie Converse.

Before receiving her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College, Sarah was the founding editor in chief of Yahoo Food. Her food writing has been featured in print and online for Bon Appétit, House Beautiful, The Guardian, Food52, Modern Farmer, Extra Crispy and others. 

Sarah has facilitated creative writing workshops at Sarah Lawrence College, Mendocino Coast Writers Conference, Catapult, Gotham Writers’ Workshop, her own independently run workshops for writers who are mothers, and for many young writer programs including the University of Virginia, Brooklyn Friends School, and Wordstruck. She lives with her family in Northern California and fell in love with the Midwest as a college student in Minnesota.

Amy Shearn is the award-winning author of the novels Dear Edna Sloane (Red Hen Press, 2024),  Unseen City (Red Hen Press, 2020), The Mermaid of Brooklyn (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 2013), and How Far Is the Ocean From Here (Shaye Areheart/Crown, 2008). 

, Gotham Writers’ Workshops, Catapult, Story Studio Chicago, the Yale Writers' Workshop, and the Writing Co-Lab, which she helped found.

Amy's work has appeared in many publications including the New York Times Modern Love column, Slate, Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Coastal Living. Amy received a Promise Award from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and has been awarded residencies at SPACE on Ryder Farm, The Unruly Retreat, and The Cabins. She has also hosted and curated many literary events in New York City, including a reading series called Lit at Lark and an author talk series, Bookish, at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Amy has an MFA from the University of Minnesota, and lives in Brooklyn with her two children. She is originally from the Chicago area.

Sarah and Amy first met in a windowless Conde Nast editorial office in 2009, when Sarah told Amy she was the cutest pregnant lady, and Amy was totally starstruck because she’d been a faithful reader of Sarah’s lifestyle blog for years. They’ve been meaning to work on something cool together ever since. Last year's writing retreat was pretty much a dream come to life.