Want some
sweet writerly treats delivered right to your email?
United Kingdom
April 9-14, 2025 | North Norfolk shore, UK
The Locale
Downton Abbey meets high bohemian in this 17-bedroom haven of creativity and wonder. A three-hour scenic train ride from London, near the North Norfolk shore, the famous Voewood House is the writing retreat you’ve been dreaming of. Regal aristocracy is replaced with eclectic art, cozy fireplaces, rich velvet couches, clawfoot tubs, epic garden views and beds you can dream the night away in. Owned by Notting Hill’s best-loved bibliophile Simon Finch and his screenwriting partner/wife Ms. Martha Fiennes, this mansion has hosted some of the most iconic artists of our time. An Arts and Crafts estate with the spirit of a rock and roller. You will write, laugh, dance and feast for five glorious days.
The Experience
A festival of words, this retreat will welcome 24 writers from all over the world. For five days, we will bask in the spirit of the word. Mornings, we breakfast on the chef’s gourmet, then to the music room for your first Gateless Writing Salon, where you’ll write the morning away. Gateless feedback will show you your unique talent on the page. Daily Reiki and Thai head massage, garden walks, inspired art viewing, reading aloud, and finally group candlelight dinners, tarot readings by the fire, breathwork, shamanic healings, yoga nidra and channeling the spirit of the word. You’ll sleep like an angel in one of the stunning bedrooms in the Voewood estate’s mansion.
The Writing
Gateless Writing Salons are world renowned for teaching the art of the written word. We start with a meditative prompt and Thai head massage to move you into a creative state, and you write silently in community. Finally, we rise to read aloud. Gateless feedback–oral and written–shows you your innate craft and the core energy of the story you were meant to tell. Radical nurturing of the writer allows emerging and seasoned writers to take incredible risks on the page. If you’ve only ever journaled, you may discover the novel within. Memoirists are surprised to find the last chapter of the book they’ve been trying to write. Whether you’re established or just starting out, in Gateless salons, life-long friendships are born.
Request more information HERE.
“That first Gateless Retreat completely changed my career, my writing and my life. I will never be the same.”
~ Sarah Montana, Screenwriter
The Participants
Authors, doctors, therapists, composers, moms, inclusion consultants, educators, massage gurus, brand advisors, journalists, those who have only ever written emails and yet feel an intense community with the word and others who have published extensively and need a boost. Gateless is never about “what” you do but the essence of who you are. We value kindness, curiosity, inspiration, grace and laughter in a puppy pile of support. We’re here for the astounding joy that comes with writing, story, memory, the imagination. By leaving criticism at the door, you cocoon in the sweetness of literary artists who have your back every step of the way, even (especially) when you return home.
The Channeling
For centuries writing has been understood as a channel to the divine. From the ancient Sumerians, to Sanskrit and the Kabbalah, the mystics have known that spirit speaks through the word. At Voewood, we will enter this field during evening sessions with Suzanne who’s long been a channel for the Akashic and Ascended Masters. This intelligence comes to her from many lifetimes, including the ancient female scribes of Mesopotamia. The channel moves past your “should” into your full potential in love, career, health, wealth, finding community, geography, family and more. This is a sublime experience of profound bliss that connects you with an unconditionally loving source that wants only your highest good.
The Result
This is what you’ve been waiting for. Known for its profound artistic beauty, the Voewood retreat is the high-touch escape into a force field of creative fire. Through writing salons and ancient embodiment practices–including channeling and immersive bodywork–Gateless shifts your neurotransmitters, floods you with endorphins and serotonin and leads you into the wild landscape of your deepest self. This is where you find the courage and agency to take risks without fear of criticism. The Gateless Voewood experience is where you discover the incredibly supportive community you’ve been craving and the true bliss of being artistically and spiritually alive. Writers who come to Gateless Retreats often say it was a highlight of their lives.
Request more information HERE.
“The Gateless Writing Retreats are transformative, electrifying, nothing compares to the elation you feel when you receive feedback in the circle. That incredible infusion of community and soaring creativity can really only happen in Gateless. The critical voice falls away and you find again the pure bliss that’s been inside you all along. Nothing else compares.”
~ Lauren Myers, MFA, Newton, Massachusetts
Request more information HERE.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get there?
We recommend flying into Gatwick or Heathrow Airport by April 8 so that you have a day in London to get your bearings.
On April 9, take a taxi to Liverpool Street Station in London.
Trains to Sheringham Station leave every 30 minutes (there’s one changeover in Norwich).
We’ll pick you up at the station for the 15-minute drive to Voewood.
Once you’re accepted into this retreat, our Gateless Writing admin team will send you all of the info on travel arrival and departure. They will also request your food sensitivities, contact details during the retreat, emergency contact, photo, bio, and more.
Until then, rest easy!
We’ll also have a driver on hand for emergencies. Otherwise absolutely everything you need for your trip will be found at Voewood: amazing meals, a comfy bed, lots of places to write, walk, talk, and cozy up.
The craft seminars are in the Academy portal and are recorded. Built from the highest literary minds in the country, these seminars are all-inclusive and presented like a podcast, so you can listen at any time when you want and need them. Written summaries remind you of the key points. These are released monthly and you have access to them for the entire ten months of the program.
We provide live, virtual Gateless Writing salons in the New Rules Studio; salons are offered three times a week so that you can find a time that works for your schedule. Amber Petty has live programming and records everything as well.
What’s the schedule?
Arrive at Voewood on April 9 between 2:00 – 4:00 pm.
You’ll be welcomed, explore the house, get settled in your room, walk the gardens, take a little nap, and meet your incredible group. Then enjoy little nibbles in the kitchen for afternoon energy.
Our first Gateless session will commence at 4:15 pm on April 9 in the music room at Voewood. We will talk about details, logistics, the Gateless Guidelines and write a little bit.
Dinner will then be served at 6 pm with a group channeling afterwards. And then you will sleep by 10:00 pm.
Each day breakfast is served from 8:00 – 9:00 am (come down whenever you feel hungry). The Gateless Writing Salon then begins at 9 am. We then break at noon for lunch with time to explore.
The next salon then starts at 3:00 pm with dinner starting at 6 pm. After dinner there will be a group embodiment practice/ channeling that runs until 10:00 pm.
On the final day of the retreat on April 13, we’ll have breakfast with a closing ceremony, and then you are free to leave by 9:30 am.
What should I bring?
North Norfolk is renowned for its spectacular coastline, fantastic wildlife, miles of glorious beaches, seaside communities, beautiful hinterland of rolling countryside, picturesque market towns and villages, and National Trust estates. Voewood is a sweet, warm oasis of creative inspiration amidst it all. Think streaming sunlight, nooks to read in, and beds to nap on.
You should bring: your laptop, tablet or journal, clothes to cozy up in, a good pair of walking shoes, an umbrella, raincoat, your favorite pajamas, headphones to listen to music while you skip around the estate’s gardens, slippers, not what you are working on necessarily, but an open mind for what may come to you while you write in salons with your new friends. This is a casual, fun, extremely nurturing experience. Bring what makes you happy.
Should I already know what I’m working on?
Some people come with an idea for a novel, with the first draft of a memoir; others want to commune with the spirit of the written word and literally have no idea what is going to arise. Writers are always (always) surprised. We don’t “work” on your writing. We play in the landscape of what’s possible for you on the page.
Gateless salons start with a prompt to get you writing and you may or may not read aloud and get feedback (at least once during retreat, try to read aloud, the feedback is a literary massage!).
Gateless Writing salons will knock your socks off with how powerful they are and how gratifying they feel. So many times writers leave retreats realizing that they have found their calling. They know exactly what they want to do and where they want to go.
One of the most exciting things about retreat is that the power of who you are as a creative creeps up on you when you are having the time of your life.
What’s the total cost?
The total retreat cost includes Reiki, Thai head massage, writing salons, your beautiful bedroom at Voewood, meals from our gourmet chef, channeling, breathwork, sound healing, and more. There are 17 bedrooms and 7 baths available at Voewood House.
Depending on your accommodation preference, we have the following options available.
The Hideaway:
3-5 beds to a room
$2,500 per person
Chamber Rooms:
Two beds, two to a room (very spacious)
$3,200 per person
Single Rooms:
One bed, shared bath down the hall
$3,950
Ensuite Rooms:
One bed, private bath
$4,800 (filled)
Your Retreat Leader:
Suzanne Kingsbury is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed author whose work has been translated widely abroad and optioned for film.
In 2007 after graduating from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop with Frank Conroy, and the Bennington College Masters in Fine Arts in Writing and the Literary Arts program, Suzanne founded Gateless Writing, a global literary arts organization whose unique methodology combines brain science, ancient Zen techniques, and therapeutic nurturing to develop writers’ unique talent and singular genius, enabling them to move through residual blocks and create domain-changing prose.
Suzanne is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and the Oxford Town Fiction Award and her work has been profiled in Rolling Stone Magazine (European edition), The Guardian, The L.A. Times, O Magazine, BuzzFeed, Bustle, Ms Magazine, Thrive Global (named Top Writing Retreat of 2017), NPR syndicates, and more.
Suzanne is also trained in Reiki and certified in Thai head massage and can “read” a writer through touch. She began working as a scribe channel while she was leading her first Gateless Teacher Training in 2014, receiving messages from a divine source of unconditional love that helped writers find clarity and power in their words. As a writing intuit, she uses the sacred spirit of the word to understand deep patterning and repeated archetypes in a writer’s work, that leads to profound alchemy in their lives.
Through retreats, workshops, one-on-one intensives, and career training programs, Suzanne has helped countless writers on their way to landing top agents, signing lucrative book deals and winning prestigious literary awards. Her writers have also been profiled in some of the world’s top media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, USA Today, The Jane Pauley Show, the Today Show, CBS, NBC, ABC and more. She believes if you are a writer, you have been tapped by the divine to be a conduit for a message only you can tell and that writers can move a crowd with the power of their story.