Last month we announced the first ever Writing Excuses retreat, and we were delighted to see how much interest you all had in this kind of event. We honestly didn’t know what to expect from this retreat, since it was the first time we’d ever attempted anything like it–would it be popular? Would nobody care? Would people actually pay for it? As a way of testing the waters, we limited the announcement to a highly dedicated subset of Writing Excuses listeners: the people who read and comment on the website. If they got excited, it was a good sign that others might get excited as well, and we could announce it to a much broader base of listeners.

The retreat sold out in 9 minutes.

In hindsight, we should have expected this. In foresight (that’s a thing, right?) this is a very good sign that we need to do another retreat next year. We’ll see how this one goes before announcing anything concrete, but yeah. This seems like something we need to do more of.

But fear not, because we have even more good news. Before registration opened we held back one slot, and that slot is still available. We just want to make sure it goes to someone who really deserves it, so we’re very pleased to announce a scholarship. This scholarship comes to you through the inspiration and funding of one of our listeners, who offered to help a worthy writer attend. We loved the idea, and moved some things around to help stretch his offer even further. The recipient of the scholarship will receive free registration to the retreat, a fully paid room in the nearby hotel, and up to $500 toward airfare. Note that the registration fee includes most of your food already, so this covers almost all of your expenses for the week.

We want to make sure that this scholarship goes to someone who both needs it and deserves it, so the submission process requires you to do a bit of work. To be considered for this scholarship, please submit the following to retreat@writingexcuses.com by midnight, January 15, 2013:

• A brief example of your writing, consisting of 1-3 separate pieces and totaling no more than 10,000 words. These can be short stories or novel excerpts or whatever you want, just make sure it’s your best work. Don’t feel obligated to fill the word limit–if you can wow us in less, more power to you.

• A personal essay explaining why you think you deserve the scholarship. This should be 450-700 words, and while we’re looking specifically for “need,” we’ll definitely be reviewing your writing style in terms of “merit.”

• Three brief letters (no more than 300 words each) from people not related to you. While the fiction and the personal essay should be included in a single email, these letters can be emailed individually by the people who write them, just make sure they include your name in the subject line.

We anticipate a huge response to this scholarship, so please be aware that we will be culling the applications relentlessly, and those that don’t follow the guidelines will be the first to go. Submit your personal pieces in the body of a single email (no attachments), with the subject line “Scholarship Application: [name].” Make sure the people writing your letters of recommendation use the same subject line. Follow the word counts exactly, and don’t miss the deadline: January 15, 2013. We will review the submissions and announce our decision on February 15, 2013, which should still give you plenty of time to work out vacation time and babysitters and so on for the retreat in June.

We look forward to reading your submissions!