Cabin fever

Here’s a great article titled “Cabin Fever” by Ken Gordon, which was published in Poets & Writer’s Magazine. In it, Ken writes about the yearning that so many writers share for a private place in which to write. A place like Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond.

“A small cabin ensures a sense of solitude, allowing you to eavesdrop on the internal chatter that gets continually preempted in the crush of daily affairs. We let too many people into our houses, our studies, our lives as it is. As Philip Larkin once wrote, ‘Just think of all the spare time that has flown / Straight into nothingness by being filled / With forks and faces.’ Or as Søren Kierkegaard put it: ‘The crowd is untruth.’”

The accommodations that the Writer’s Refuge offers provide the solitude that Thoreau sought at Walden Pond. Fortunately, they also offer amenities like Wi-Fi and indoor plumbing.

A Getaway for Productivity of Purpose

Here’s an article titled “A Getaway for Productivity of Purpose” by Patricia Duff, which was published in the South Whidbey Record. It’s about the Writer’s Refuge back when the Foxglove Cabin was the only accommodation.

“The famous solitary writers Henry David Thoreau and Emily Dickinson would have loved it here.

Down a winding drive to the tidy cabin beyond the main house, beyond the chicken and goat pens, they could wile away the hours writing with only the occasional soft murmur of a kid’s whinny or a hen’s croon to infiltrate their writerly thoughts.

Here at the Whidbey Island Writer’s Refuge, there’s everything writers need and none of what they don’t.”

In Langley, Wash., Togetherness
Comes One Citizen at a Time

Mike Siegel/The Seattle Times

Here’s an article that appeared in the Seattle Times about what makes the seaside town of Langley special. (The accommodation closest to Langley is the Foxglove Cabin.)

Petra Martin, owner of the Writer’s Refuge, says that some days in Langley feel so idyllic, she’s afraid a Klieg light will fall out of the sky, and she’ll discover it’s just a movie set like Truman did in the film The Truman Show.

Famous Writers’ Small Writing
Sheds and Off-the-Grid Huts

George Bernard Shaw's writing hut

As this article from re-nest.com shows, many writers have had the desire for a place in which they could completely devote themselves to their writing.

George Bernard Shaw’s is probably the most clever. He named it “London,” so his staff wouldn’t be lying when they told people, “He’s gone to London.” High tech for its day, it had electricity, a telephone, and a buzzer system. And it was built on a turntable, so he could push it to follow the sun.

Can’t build a hut of your own? Come to the Writer’s Refuge. We’ll save you the work!