Food, Wine & Travel Writing with Authors Lavinia Spalding & Marcy Gordon
October 7 - 14, 2012
8 days / 7 nights
Limited to 14 people

Highlights
• Daily writing sessions
• Professional writing critiques
• Traditional and avant-garde Catalan cuisine • Winery and olive oil mill visits and tastings • Cooking class
• Tapas tours in Reus and Barcelona
• Modernist tour in Barcelona

Food, Wine & Travel Writing with Authors Lavinia Spalding & Marcy Gordon

October 7 - 14, 2012
8 days / 7 nights
Limited to 14 people

What better way to begin writing about food, wine, and travel than when tasting tapas and toasting with tempranillo in beautiful Spain? Join us for an eight-day journey to the Priorat Region and Barcelona. You’re invited to immerse yourself in the culture of the region, where you’ll find daily inspiration in its landscape, people, and renowned culinary treasures. Visit vineyards, taste olive oil, learn to cook traditional meals, dine on gourmet food, and enjoy luxury accommodations while you push your writing to the next level with focused workshops, literary discussions, readings, innovative writing sessions, and optional individual consultations. There will be plenty of encouragement, instruction, and feedback, but also enough free time to write, relax, roam-- even reinvent yourself. Travel has the ability to make writers of us all, and this trip will turn that potential into reality.

WRITING IN SPAIN This writing tour is ideal both for writers who are just starting out as well as those seeking an infusion of creative energy for their existing work. Through the practice of daily journaling, participants will gain valuable writing experience and feedback from group workshop critiques. Professional advice and direction will refine writing skills and prepare pieces for publication. Your food and wine experiences will serve as the basis for your daily writing, as your instructors focus on the art of food, wine, and travel writing.

The Priorat is one of Spain’s top wine regions, and the wines produced here are appreciated throughout the world. Neglected until the 1980s, the region made a comeback thanks to internationally known winemakers who revived the ancient Grenache vines covering the steep slopes of the area. The cuisine favors local products and traditional methods, although the modernizing influence of nearby Barcelona can be seen in many of the young chefs’ restaurants. The Priorat is a world away from cosmopolitan Barcelona, but a short drive from Reus, known for its beautiful Modernist architecture.

Your hotel for five days in the Priorat– Cal Compte–is a former nobleman’s house in the village of Torroja del Priorat. The house has been lovingly restored and includes a large sitting room, a stately dining room, and a covered porch. The entire house will be yours for the week, and dinners will include traditional Catalan fare prepared by the hotel owners and on some nights by the group. On one night you will join a local chef for a hands-on cooking class. Your days will be filled with visits to olive oil producers, local markets, tapas bars, traditional restaurants, and wineries.

Participants in the Writing Away in Spain program will receive a copy of Writing Away by Lavinia Spalding and The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2011, edited by Lavinia Spalding and featuring Marcy Gordon.

See the full itinerary

WRITING INSTRUCTORS Lavinia Spalding is the author of two books: Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler, named one of the best travel books of 2009 by the L.A. Times, and With a Measure of Grace, the Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant, now in its fourth printing. She is also editor of the 2011 and 2012 editions of Travelers’ Tales’ The Best Women’s Travel Writing. A freelance travel and food writer, she is a regular contributor to Yoga Journal, and her work has also appeared in a wide variety of print and online publications, including Sunset Magazine, Post Road, World Hum, Gadling, and Inkwell. She has a decade of classroom and private teaching experience. She lives in San Francisco and can always be found at http://www.laviniaspalding.com  Marcy Gordon writes Come for the Wine, a popular blog that features wine tourism destinations around the world, and partners with tour operators, vintners associations and wineries to promote travel to their regions using social media, and conversation marketing strategies. She is a published travel writer and worked for The Touring Club of Italy, where she was contributing editor for the Authentic Italy guidebook series. Her narrative travel writing has appeared online on World Hum and in print in Travelers’ Tales anthology The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010, 2011, and 2012. She is the editor of Travelers’ Tales 2012 humor writing collection: Leave the Lipstick, Take the Iguana. Visit http://www.comeforthewine.com to find Marcy.

More Info

Epicurean Ways

Telephone: 434-738-2293
After hours: 434-228-0641
In Spain: 938-022-688