Having just completed a writing retreat myself, I was reminded of the value of getting away from it all, escaping dogs, cats, kids, everyday responsibilities, to focus on my own creativity and writing. I hope that will be the case for you too – we’ll do plenty of writing, specifically geared towards helping you tell your personal story, whatever it might be. 

There will also be time to reflect as well as to explore the gorgeous town. We hope the experience will be a treat, all round, nurturing, reflective, exciting – and that you’ll come away with pages of writing and a clear idea of the next steps to take towards completing your memoir. – Joanne Hichens, memoirist and novelist

Cost from R 7103

Book your place on The Art of the Memoir and commit yourself today to writing your memoir  

To book, please contact Cindy Wilson at The Karoo Art Hotel 

Find more information about the Karoo Art Hotel here

If you’d like to discuss your writing needs, please contact Jo-Anne Richards  

How the weekend will work? 

• Book in to The Karoo Art Hotel from 2pm on the afternoon of Friday 18 March – or come earlier and have a relaxing lunch before checking in.  

• Starting at 4pm on Friday afternoon, we’ll get you thinking about Story, and how it relates to your project.

• This will be followed by drinks and canapes, and a delicious dinner. 

• On Saturday and Sunday, we’ll give you a sense of what it takes to write a memoir and guide you through different types of personal writing. We’ll talk about Details, about Showing and about writing in Scenes, for dramatic impact.  

• On Saturday there will be a break for lunch in the town, which offers an opportunity for a writing exercise on the hoof.  

• On Saturday night we’ll have pre-dinner cocktails followed by another delicious farm-to-fork dinner. 

• We’ll then head up to The Karoo Art Hotel’s private cinema in the rafters above the historic ballroom where desserts and vintage sweets will be served while we’re watching a movie.  

• On Sunday, after a morning of writing and discussion, we’ll have a Karoo lunch before we cast off our writers’ mantles (if that’s possible after 48 hours of creative excitement) and scatter. 

Your course leaders

Joanne Hichens is an author and editor. Her crime fiction titles include Divine Justice and Sweet Paradise. Her memoir Death and the After Parties was published in 2020.

“In Death and the After Parties I write about the passing of my mother, husband, father and mother-in-law, and examine everything that happened after their deaths – the emotional frenzy, the funerals, the family strife, the fighting, the loving. I describe first-hand the shock, the grief, the mourning, the betrayals, ultimately focusing on recovering from loss.”

Jo-Anne Richards is an internationally published novelist with a PhD in Creative Writing from Wits University. Jo-Anne has published five novels: The Imagined Child, The Innocence of Roast Chicken, My Brother’s Book,  Touching the Lighthouse and Sad at the Edges.

Her first novel, The Innocence of Roast Chicken was recently rereleased as part of the prestigious Picador Africa Classics collection. When it first appeared, in 1996, it was nominated for the Impac International Dublin Literary Award and chosen as an “outstanding debut novel” by a British book chain.

Jo-Anne has published short stories in six collections and ran the Honours programme in Journalism & Media Studies at Wits University for fifteen years. She has supervised Creative Writing Masters students at Wits and UCT, and acted as examiner for both programmes.