The Writing Retreat

The Writing Retreat is the 2023 debut novel of writer Julia Bartz. The novel’s protagonist, Alex, scores an unlikely invitation to a writing retreat at Blackbriar, the allegedly haunted estate of best-selling author Roza Vallo. Roza happens to be Alex’s favorite writer. The only downside to accepting Roza’s invitation is that Alex’s ex-best friend, Wren, will also be attending the retreat. So will Alex’s stubborn writer’s block, which has persisted since she and Wren fell out. As the retreat begins, Alex realizes that the stakes are much higher than she initially thought: Roza pits the writers against one another, promising to help publish and promote the winner. Just as everyone at the retreat is not who they claim to be, all is not as it seems at Blackbriar, the site of an unsolved murder-suicide. Alex and the other visiting writers—Wren, Poppy, Keira, and Taylor—have unwittingly stumbled into a scenario that could easily have sprung from one of Roza’s horror novels. Their ensuing dilemmas provide Bartz with complex psychological terrain for exploring the interplay between the process of writing, the powers of storytelling, the pretenses behind creative appropriation, the nuances of sexuality, and artists’ hunger for recognition.

This guide references the Emily Bestler Books/Atria Books 2023 edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The Writing Retreat contains fictional examples of violence, murder, psychological abuse, and occult activity. This guide explicitly references these issues in its summary and analysis. The Writing Retreat also employs the adjective “queer” to describe sexual encounters between women. This is a controversial creative choice on Bartz’s part, as this word has been and continues to be used for the purpose of shaming non-heterosexual intimacy. However, Bartz’s intention is to reclaim and liberate the term queer from lingering social stigmas (see Background and Themes). To ensure that her artistic intentions are accurately and respectfully conveyed, this guide preserves her use of this language.

Plot Summary

The Writing Retreat follows five women writers in a high-stakes creative competition. The winner will have her novel published with the help of superstar feminist horror author Roza Vallo, thus achieving fame and fortune. In Part 1, Alex receives the wonderful news that she and her ex-best friend, Wren, have been accepted into the writing retreat. Alex is equal parts thrilled and terrified. Despite its promising potential, the retreat will force her to interact with Wren and to face the writer’s block triggered by the catastrophic breakdown of their friendship. Regardless, the other participants—bright-eyed Poppy, effusive Taylor, and taciturn Keira—are as surprised as Alex and Wren when Roza announces that their retreat will not be a relaxing, safe space in which to write but rather a grueling competition between the women. They will each write several thousand words per day, discuss and critique one another’s work, and meet privately with Roza, who will eventually pick one manuscript to promote.

The other catch: Each writer must work on an entirely new novel. Alex is struggling to generate an original idea when Keira suggests that she research Blackbriar, Roza’s estate and the site of the retreat itself. A young spiritualist, Daphne, and her oil-baron husband, Horace, were found dead at Blackbriar back in the 19th century. The estate has supposedly been haunted ever since. Roza approves of this idea and encourages Alex to pursue it. In their private conversations, Alex also tells Roza the full story of what transpired between her and Wren: After a night of drinking, Wren had crawled into bed with Alex and initiated sex. Afterward, Alex felt confused, while Wren seemed indifferent and soon moved out of their shared apartment. This confession frees Alex of her writer’s block. She begins work on a manuscript entitled The Great Commission.

In Part 2, Alex’s writing is proceeding so well that she feel confident enough to approach Wren in the hopes of mending their relationship. Their conversation is unpleasant and they decide to ignore each other for the remainder of the retreat.

At a Valentine’s Day party, Roza spikes the group’s punch with hallucinogenic drugs. Poppy leads Alex into the basement in pursuit of an unidentified mystery. Alex becomes distracted, though, and hallucinates that Lamia, her demon creature from The Great Commission, is making love to her.

Alex wakes up the next morning, at the beginning of Part 3, unaware of how she has returned to her room. Poppy is missing. A snowstorm has cut off all communications. Mutual suspicion takes root. Alex and Wren discover that Poppy is really someone named Zoe Canard, who has been copying the work of an soon-to-be published writer for her retreat manuscript. Alex decides to search Blackbriar’s basement for clues to Zoe’s disappearance. While doing so, Alex finds a key panel that unlocks a secret room. She suspects that Roza is holding Zoe hostage there.

Alex searches Roza’s room while everyone else is at dinner. Alex finds a passageway down to the hidden room, along with a bank of monitors showing every other room in the house. Apparently, Roza has had the group under constant surveillance. Alex also finds the small cell where Zoe is being held. Alex is drugged before she can free Zoe.

A while later, Alex awakens in the cell. Zoe explains that she has been trying to expose Roza. She believes that Roza steals other writers’ works and publishes them under her own name—sometimes disposing of the real authors in the process. Zoe knows that this happened to her aunt, who was the real creator of Roza’s novel Lion’s Rose. Keira, Wren, and Taylor then burst into the cell. Before they can release Alex and Zoe, Taylor steps out and locks the door behind her. It turns out that she is Roza’s girlfriend and has been working with Roza the entire time. She reveals that she and Alex had sex the night that Alex thought she hallucinated an encounter with Lamia.

Roza makes a deal with her captives: If they finish writing their novels, she will let them live. She will choose one of the books to publish as her own, but she will take care of all of them financially—as long as she has leverage to keep them silent. They agree. Roza summons Zoe for a one-on-one meeting and Zoe dies in the resulting scuffle. Roza tries to convince Alex to become her new muse. Several days later, Roza’s assistant, Yana, mounts an escape attempt for all the writers save Wren. Alex returns to the house to save Wren while the others escape.

In Part 4, Alex attempts to retrieve Wren. They are caught while trying to escape. Taylor shoots Yana and shows Alex a picture of Keira’s body crumpled in the snow. Roza tells Alex and Wren that they must finish their novels and choose the winner themselves. The loser will die. Alex throws her manuscript into the fire and secretly poisons the wine with wolfsbane she stole from Taylor’s room. Both Taylor and Roza drink the poisonous wine. In the ensuing commotion, Keira bludgeons Taylor from behind with a vase, killing her. Keira survived by subsisting on scraps left to her by the estate cook. Roza locks them all in a room and flees the scene.

Six months later, Alex reads from The Great Commission at a book event. She refuses interviews, because she will not answer questions about the troubling writer’s retreat where her newly published novel was born. Alex has decided to begin a new life in LA. She and Wren have mended their friendship, but there will never be anything more between them. Alex wants to explore what her new romantic possibilities might bring her. Before she leaves, however, she receives a text from an unknown number: It is Roza, congratulating Alex on her book and promising to follow her future career. Alex wonders what it would have been like to have partnered with her mysterious and glamorous, if sociopathic, mentor.