The Writing Retreat

Content Warning: This section explores violent, abusive, sexual, and occult subject matter. It also replicates Bartz’s use of the adjective “queer.”

The Writing Retreat revels in playful engagement with ideas about writing and artistic creation, as well as self-conscious mimicry of Gothic conventions and numerous references to other works of fantasy and horror. Most characters represent archetypes—Roza the villainous “puppet master,” Taylor the traitorous “turncoat”—while maintaining their own, deeply nuanced identities. Alex, in particular, grows and changes throughout the novel, subverting the “damsel in distress” persona. The plot itself is as straightforward as it is riddled with the potential for mayhem. Five young female creatives are lured to an allegedly haunted, remote estate to write for a well-known author of horror: It begs the question of what could possibly go wrong. Complicating matters is the fact that, although these writers are hardly acquiescent or suggestible, they allow their egos to lead them astray as often as they assist them in revolting.

The Writing Retreat clearly draws on the established conventions of the Gothic genre. The setting most certainly satisfies one requirement, as the characters gather at the isolated and haunted estate of

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