Our Writers Retreats Issue features more than eighty free retreats, conferences, and festivals; practical advice for first-time colonists; Cheryl Strayed's Writers Camp; a conversation with Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri and translator Ann Goldstein; a profile of master essayist Annie Dillard; a library and residency in the Rockies; a report from literary Denmark; the Savvy Self-Publisher; and much more.

Our annual Inspiration Issue features essays on the origins of storytelling, historical fiction as an invitation to wonder, the challenges of facing difficult material on the page, taking risks in creative nonfiction, and our eleventh annual look at the year’s best debut poets; plus writing prompts for the new year, daring to discover your dangerous writing, the art of biography, questioning self-promotion, interviews with Kay Ryan and Saeed Jones, and more.