The tenth Villa Diodati Expat Writers Workshop saw John Olsen and Ruth Nestvold back at Schloss Lohrbach in southern Germany, where the very first workshop was held exactly ten years ago. Joining Ruth and John was Benjamin Rosenbaum, who originally conceived the idea with Ruth way back when, returning to the workshop after a longish absence. Christian Walter, Floris Kleijne, Jeff Spock, Grayson Bray Morris, and Marion Engelke completed this edition’s group.

We’ve come a long way since that first October weekend in 2007:

• some 116 stories and novel excerpts critiqued at 18 workshops;
• at least thirty of those stories subsequently sold and published;
• several Hugo and Nebula nominations and wins.

Fortunately, some things have not changed in those ten years: we still eat very well (some 90 lovely meals shared), we still play a range of serious, silly, and hilarious games; and we still immerse ourselves in the joy of time spent with kindred souls, other writers, fellow geeks; with our tribe.

Here’s to another ten years and twenty workshops!

Almost the crowdedest Villa Diodati in 15 years, VD14, was held this March 2015 on the Costa del Sol, in Spain. Again, Sylvia was kind enough to make her sumptuous summer house in La Cala de Mijas available for us, and a whopping ten members attended:

Left to right: Frances, Bo, Sylvia, Ruth, Floris, Grayson, Jeff, Christian, Stephen, and Jeremy.

Another workshop was inflicted on five of our members this May, killing many of their brain cells, and reaffirming their desire to write, write, and then write some more. Oh, and they also consulted an Oracle.

Read more about this strange occurence here.