A Haven For Stories Retreat

Dates: 18th October – 25th October 2025

The retreat

What are the stories you wish to tell? Do you dream of starting a writing project, unblocking your creativity, or giving your work-in-progress some much-needed time and care?

This is your chance to spend a week in the Italian countryside with three (yes, three) acclaimed writer-teachers: Elise Valmorbida, Tobias Jones and Alice Vincent. Your three writing guides have worked in various genres and media — non-fiction, novels, screenwriting, documentaries, journalism — and they’re big-hearted teachers of creative writing. They’re brilliant individually, and as a team. They’ll help you hone your voice, structure your story, tackle dialogue, build narrative drive — and advise on any writing or publishing queries that crop up.

Here’s an opportunity to share ideas and to experiment, maybe to reimagine a manuscript which has become a burden. You’ll feel at home if you’re exploring memoir, fiction, scriptwriting or non-fiction.

The week will involve morning writing workshops in small groups, daily one-on-one tutorials with each of our tutors, evening readings, plus — for those who fancy it — the option of yoga sessions, tennis, swimming and walking.

To be at Villa Pia is to join in: long lunches and traditional Tuscan four-course dinners at one big table, with good coffee, wine and Aperol spritz on tap. Villa Pia is naturally sociable, but you will also be able to enjoy solitude here, especially in our silent writing rooms. Perhaps you’ll find inspiration in the misted dawns and deep, star-studded skies. We look after the essentials so that you can concentrate on making space for your storytelling.

Consider this retreat a permission-granting to work on your words. Stimulating, creative and thoroughly relaxing, A Haven for Stories offers that rare thing: time to work out what story you want to tell, and how best to tell it.

The surroundings

Villa Pia is an award-winning family villa in Lippiano, a traditional Italian town on the border of Umbria and Tuscany. The area remains as beautiful and unspoiled as it was 500 years ago. Famed for inspiring the architecture, painting and sculpture of the Renaissance period, here civilisation and nature sit side by side.

The main house at Villa Pia is a 15th-century Italian country manor house, once the summer residence of a Florentine family. The large, rustic house plus converted barn and stables provide 17 bedrooms, all with private bathrooms. Every room is unique, retaining original and traditional features and furnishings. In the main house there are communal rooms for dining, and space for you to relax, chat with a fellow workshop member or curl up with a book in the library. The house opens out onto the courtyard–perfect for time outdoors, with an aperitivo.

Book your place

Shared occupancy is priced at £1200, single occupancy with shared bathroom at £1400, and single occupancy with en suite at £1700. This includes all tuition, meals, drinks and snacks 24 hours a day.

To book please contact villapia@villapia.com