The Treetops Retreat
September 14-17, 2026
“Without Gateless, my book never would have been born.”
~ Mary Gauthier, author of Saved by a Song, St. Martin’s Press
The Method
No other writing retreat in the world gives you what Gateless Writing does: a hive of support for the emerging and established writer. Gateless was born at the intersection of Zen Buddhism and creative neuroscience and is designed to radically nurture your creative urge within. Every session starts with energy work, meditative journeying into the theta brain state, and somatic prompts that interrupt the brain’s negative feedback loops and open up imagination, innovation and long term memory. Personalized and positive peer review allows you to grow as a writer, understanding how to begin, shape and find the hidden power in your singular story. This is where the spirit of the word comes alive.
The Experience
This retreat is in the treetops of Guilford, CT overlooking 39 miles of preserved trails, rock caves, waterfalls, and marshes. The glass retreat house was home to the late poet and memoirist, Joanna Baumer. With views of the trees from almost every window, mature perennial gardens surrounding an inground pool, and a huge writing salon, you’ll be in the sweet spot of your creative fire. Feast on personalized meals from our private chef, receive Reiki and Thai head massage, shamanic journeying sessions, sound healing and a deep dive into the stories that live in the secreted rooms of memory and the imaginal. This retreat has alchemized writers to create some of the most domain-changing work of their lives.
Result
From this retreat, writers have finished memoirs, started blockbuster fiction careers, been picked up by top literary agents, and published with the Big Four publishers. You will generate more writing in four days than most writers do in a year, and experience a writer’s “high” of pure bliss. This is where you find your artistic community. And where you know, for sure, you can change your world with the power of the word.
Do you belong here? Will you be able to write? At retreat, all questions fall away. Gateless welcomes you with warm arms, and your creative urge is, finally, answered.
“There’s nothing like a writing retreat with Suzanne Kingsbury, she’s a guru, a magician and a fairy godmother. When you’re in her retreat, your work comes alive, you can’t help it. It’s an out-of-body experience that makes you feel like you flew through the night and hit the stars.”
~ Marshall Chapman, singer/songwriter and bestselling author of Goodbye Little Rock and Roller
Room and Board
The retreat is all inclusive. Chef prepared meals with personalized attention to dietary restrictions. We eat down by the ocean or up at the big dining room table. Writers absolutely love this space. We gather for meals at a huge dining room table, peruse the library, play the grand piano, snuggle up at night to the fireplaces, laze by the pool and wander the miles of gorgeous hiking trails past rock formations from the glacier age and Guilford’s famous “hidden lake.” You’ll either stay at Treetops or the Gateless Homestead down the road, a renovated center hall colonial with gardens, a pool, and tempurpedic beds. Please fill out the form below to register and choose your room. Depending on room choice, all inclusive prices range from $2900-$3800.
The Schedule
We start at 4 pm, on Thursday, September 14. We eat a communal dinner at 6 PM and enter our first Gateless Writing Salon at 7 PM. From that day on: Breakfast 8 AM to 9 AM, then our Morning Writing Salon 9 AM to 12 noon. We take a daily break from 12 noon to 3 PM, when you can nap, wander the seashore, or walk the beach labyrinth. We come together to write the roof off in the Afternoon Writing Salon from 3 PM to 6 PM. Then we all gather over dinner at 6 PM. Our Evening Writing Salon follows at 7 PM, with delicious desserts and sensory treats. On our last day, we eat breakfast at 8 AM, come together for our final Morning Writing Salon, and a closing farewell ceremony to celebrate the incredible writing done. We finish at 1 PM after lunch on September 17.
Travel
You can fly into Tweed New Haven Airport (20 minutes away) or Bradley Airport, Hartford, CT (1 hour away). Ubers are available from there. You can combine your retreat with a visit to NYC (2 hours), Providence (1.5 hours), or Boston (2 hours). The Amtrak or Metro North train from New York takes about 2 hours and leaves from Grand Central Station for Union Station in New Haven every hour. The train from Boston leaves from Back Bay, North Station or South Station, takes about 1 hour and 40 minutes and lands you in Old Saybrook, from there you can take a commuter train or an Uber to Madison.
If you are driving, there is plenty of parking.
“This was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had. I cried as the plane was taking off, I am having serious withdrawals, I picture us in our circle, at that glorious happy table and I want to be back there again with my new lifelong friends. I am transformed.”
~ Helida Dodd, Florida
Ready to Register?
Please complete THIS FORM.
For any general questions about the retreat, please contact us HERE.
Your Retreat Leader:
Suzanne Kingsbury is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed author whose work has been translated widely abroad and optioned for film.
After completing graduate work at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop with Frank Conroy, and the Bennington College Masters in Fine Arts in Writing and the Literary Arts, Suzanne went on to research creative brain science from studies done at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, and the National Institutes of Health. In conjunction with her Fulbright work in Buddhism, she developed Gateless, a methodology that ceases negative activity in the critical centers of the brain, so that creativity, long-term memory, and imaginative intellect can move fluidly and dynamically to the forefront while creating.
In 2014, she founded the Gateless Academy, a post-graduate book-building program based on the method that has graduated writers who have won top literary awards, been represented by the The Bent Agency, Inkwell Management, Writers House, Park, Fine & Brower, Carol Mann Agency, and more. These writers have been published with Random House, Hachette Books, Harpers Business, St. Martin’s Press, Simon & Schuster, and independent presses in the United States and abroad.
Concurrently, she founded The Gateless Certification Program, a leadership-based program that trains high-achieving professionals across industries in the Gateless method. There are now over 100 Gateless certified teachers worldwide, teaching, speaking, and leading in all sectors.
Suzanne also serves as a mentor and collaborator with authors whose books are shifting the paradigm and changing the cultural domain. These include Jennifer Barrett’s Think Like a Breadwinner, Denise Cox’s forthcoming book, What Will They Say? On the Secrets We Keep (Atria, Simon & Schuster); Deepa Purushothaman, Public Policy Program Leader in Practice at the Harvard Kennedy School on the launch of her debut book on women of color and power, The First, the Few, the Only, (Harper Business); and CNN hero, Vicki Sokolik, author of the book, If You See Them (Spiegel & Grau), on her activism and legislative work advocating for homeless teens with her son, Cameron, through their nonprofit, Starting Right, Now.
Suzanne’s work has been featured in Glamour Magazine, People Magazine, The LA Times, O Magazine, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and many others. Thrive Global named the Gateless Retreats the top Writing Retreat of 2017 and the 2013 Writer’s Guide named Suzanne as one of the experts on creativity and the imaginative process. She has been trained in Shamanic journeying, Thai head massage, and Reiki, and uses these modalities when moving writers into the theta brain or “flow” state. Suzanne lives and works in southeastern Connecticut, and she hosts at-home and destination Gateless retreats 3-5 times per year.