Sunshine and Belly Laughs at Blissful Bali Transformational Writing Retreat 2026 – Retreat Rundown!

July 4, 2026 / Edwina Shaw / Leave a comment

The view from our deluxe bungalow.

Oh yes! The sun came out and shone brightly for us this year and all our days on retreat were bathed in glorious sunshine and warmth, lighting the ripe rice paddies golden. We had a full house of fabulous writing women, ranging from complete newbies with great ideas but not many words on the page to multi-published authors, January Gilchrist and Christine Jackman, who, along with my beloved retreataholics – Liana, Georgina and Tatia – needed time out to focus on their own works-in-progress.

We enjoyed a wonderfully sunny tour of Bali EcoStay’s incredible permaculture garden that we ate from every day, and through the food forest cultivated by generations of local Balinese. The water was chilly but still a few of us bravely took the plunge into the glorious waterfall and washed away all the madness of the past six months.

Every day, Kakek, the local elder and bestower of blessings, placed offerings at every shrine and at the entrance to every bungalow ensuring our safety and powering our creativity. Every day the beautiful women in the kitchen prepared us delicious healthy organic meals with warm smiles and genuine care. I love these women who work so very hard every day – not just for us, but when they go home too. Preparing offerings for festivals is creative but busy work and they’d just celebrated the equivalent of Balinese Christmas. And we all know the work that takes!

Yet still the women found time to host us for our traditional Balinese welcome blessing. We dressed up in fancy Balinese outfits and made beautiful floral offerings, participating in rituals that have lasted for eons.

I hurt my knee mid-retreat playing silly buggers during yoga with Jaye and Tatia (it was lots of fun), but you can’t keep a good woman down so apart from hobbling up and down a hundred stairs every day, retreat went on regardless. Not many yoga fans this retreat but those who turned up had a great time, got their blood pumping and cleared their heads, ready for a day of writing and thinking. Yoga moves the stories out of our bodies and writing helps us release them – the combination is important.

Every day we had at least one writing workshop, packing in university courses worth of information over the week. Plus Kerstin and I enjoyed providing individual feedback and getting to know everyone’s projects on a deeper level.

When we weren’t in workshops, or yoga class we had lots of free time for exploring and sleeping (most popular), more trips to the waterfall and MASSAGES! I confess to having three massages while at Bali EcoStay, in the heavenly massage bale surrounded by forest. Three massages and I still haven’t equalled the price of one at home. I may just marry my masseuse Sunny who was such a comfort after I hurt my knee.

My wonderful Sunny

The sound of running water was our music, the scent of earth and incense filled the air and in the teaching room the sound of laughter trumped them all.

One morning we had an unexpected visit from a few “Karens” in matching wigs, which had us all in stitches. But whatever you do, don’t cross the Karens! Thank you Tatia, Jaye and Liana for making us all laugh and bringing lots of fun and dress-ups on retreat.

My favourite session, as always, was the collage afternoon where I get to shut up for a change and we all play with images and colours and lots of bling to make vision boards to help make all our writing dreams come true.

Suddenly, WHOOSH!, the retreat came to an end with our bonfire taking away all we wanted to leave behind and blessing all we intend to bring into our lives. Some people went straight home, others travelled on to further adventures or pampering. Kerstin and I put our feet up in the deluxe bungalow as our post retreat treat, and started hatching plans for others. China anyone?

Our participants had so many great projects underway. Important stories that need to be told – either personally or for the whole world. Stories to entertain, to uplift, too heal. It is a great joy and honour to be able to provide space and encouragement and education to help make these stories the very best they can be.

How lucky am I that this is my job (or one of them anyway)? I meet the very best people. THANK YOU Rell and Aileen and Eleanor and Ginette and Kay and Tracie and Christine and Jaye and my beloved retreataholics who were back in Bali for the second time – Liana, Georgina and Tatia. Liana celebrated her thirtieth birthday with us which felt very special indeed. I’m one proud writing aunty. Thank you for trusting us with your precious selves and your stories.

Yes that is a tomato in the middle 🙂

Every retreat is different and special in its own way and I am deeply grateful for the love and joy that is shared with me in the company of these wonderful writing folk.

Our next retreat is in Byron Bay, closer to home, with a Life Writing and Memoir focus though if you’d like to come along and just work on a sci-fi novel that would be fine too. September 19 – 24 in the beautiful Byron Bay hinterland. Book yourself into a spot at the beach after the retreat to make the most of the writing inspiration and get lots of good writing done. Here’s the INFO.

We’re back in Bali again next June (21 – 27) at beautiful Bali EcoStay, our spectacular home away from home in Bali. Is it your turn yet? Stop dreaming and start planning your retreat for next year! More info HERE. Will be updated shortly.

Incredible Italy Writing Retreat gang 2025 outside Terzo

We also have a couple of rooms still available for our Incredible Italy Writing Retreat 2027 October 1 – 8 at the stunning Terzo Di Danciano which is total heaven for anyone who’s ever dreamt of holing up in a beautiful ancient villa in the hills of Tuscany to write and dream. More info HERE.

For those wanting something sooner and a whole lot more affordable I have my August 7- 9 weekend intensive Feedback and Revision Retreat. See HERE for more info. Only a few places left. Suitable for those with either some work done towards a full length project or for those with an idea for a longer project wanting to clarify the idea and nut out a rough plan. More info HERE.

Whichever retreat you join, we always have a wonderful time! Hope you can come!

Lots of love

Edwina xx

Bye bye Bali! Until next year!

DEAR MADMAN IS BORN! If you can’t open the door, smash it down!

February 27, 2026 / Edwina Shaw / 4 Comments

One week until my true crime memoir, Dear Madman, is officially launched into the world at Avid Reader. YAY! To say it’s been a long time coming is an understatement. Not for want of trying, either. Over the past twelve years, Dear Madman has been submitted hundreds of times and even made it to a few acquisitions meetings with big publishers, but never quite made it over the line.

As all writers know, rejection is part of the job description. What non-writers don’t know is just how much each rejection hurts. A LOT. I knew this project was good – compelling, dark yes, but with a kind and hopeful heart – and couldn’t understand what was stopping publishers taking that last step and accepting it for publication. The decision usually came down to the marketing folk not being able to see where it fitted on bookshelves. HINT: The memoir section! Or True Crime! Two for the price of one.

I was first told about the man who killed my beloved Nana’s sister when I was a child. Since then, I’ve carried this story, always in the back of my mind. Trying to make sense of it, to shape it into a story, to create meaning from this senseless tragedy, seeking a way to understand it and the man himself so I could attempt the forgiveness rejected by my forebears.

The story weighed heavily upon me, and I knew I had to be an experienced writer to attempt it. I also had to wait, until Nana and her generation had all passed. Nana’s been gone 30 years and her sister, the last of them, 24. All my life, whenever I tried to write the story or drew another picture of a girl with blood in her hair, my mother told me, “Whatever you do, don’t show Nana.” So I waited and carried the darkness of this story with me through life.

In 2010, I finally gave myself permission to start researching the truth behind the family myth. What I discovered took me down many deep rabbit holes and revealed a story with more twists and turns than the river that ran through the family farm where Nana grew up. Four years later, I took a suitcase stuffed with 15 kilos of printed research materials to Varuna House in the Blue Mountains where I’d been awarded a second book fellowship, determined to write my memoir.

However, once I started to write another stronger voice demanded to be heard – the voice of the murderer. He was so loud and insistent he would have stolen the story for himself, so I made the decision to also include the multiple voices of Nana and her siblings and parents. I wanted to bring back to life the little girl who’d been murdered so young, to free her from the darkness that had entangled her with the bad man forever. After two weeks on retreat, I emerged with a full first draft – a novel recreating the events of the crime.

After this novelistic version failed to fly, I wrote an extended memoir piece talking about my research and what I’d discovered and the meaning I’d created from this tragedy. I intended to publish this separately as a companion piece as Kate Grenville did with her, Searching for The Secret River. That didn’t work either.

More rejections. Argh they hurt! But year after year I kept scraping myself back up off the floor, continued teaching writing and started running writing retreats to share all I’d learnt.

Then in the early 2020s I attended my friend, the incredibly talented writer, Kristina Olsson’s memoir course at QWC. Her award-winning book Boy Lost had been my model for Dear Madman, especially the way Kris had recreated scenes from her mother’s life. After the course, I met up with Kris and asked for her help with Madman. All those rejections had brought me very low. I was back down on that mat, and the referee was already at eight by the time I saw Kris. She reached a hand down to drag me back up to try again. Thank you Kris!

More drafts. I stopped counting how many after ten years. More submissions. All requested full reads. Agents loved it but didn’t know where to try (a hard ask as I’d tried just about every trade publisher in Australia), publishers read and sent brief, “not for me” messages without any further feedback. Another draft. Another rejection or two.

Until I’d had enough and called my friend Matthew Wengert at AndAlso Books who published both Queersland and Bjelke Blues. Hooray for the little guys who are willing to take a gamble on a powerful story.

British artist Tracy Enim once famously said, “If you can’t open the door, smash it down!” So with Matthew and his team on board, that’s what we’re setting out to do. I’ve been writing solidly these past 24 years and submitting to big Australian trade publishers the whole time. No matter how hard I tried, that door wouldn’t open. So now I’m blasting it down!

But for that door to really be smashed to smithereens, I need your help. Reviews, recommendations to friends, requests from your local bookstore, pre-orders, blog posts, social media photos – each small action will help the magic start to work. For months now my Heavenly Support Team has been cheering and partying up there like something wonderful has happened. Hopefully they’re right!

If you’d like to pre-order a copy you can do so HERE.

The launch on Friday March 6 is officially booked out but I have other events coming up.

APRIL 18/2026 2 pm: Dear Madman, in conversation with the super lovely and talented Fiona Robertson at Books@Stones. Book HERE

APRIL 26/2026 11 am: Dear Madman at the Police Museum in Roma Street (Ha! Last time I was there was under very different circumstances!! Joh era). No link to the event, as yet.

How long does it take to write a book? As long as it takes!

I held a copy of Dear Madman for the first time on my birthday last week. It felt good. Very good. Relief initially, but as the days have passed I’ve experienced a great lifting of this dark burden, a new lightness being born within me.

At last, this story I’ve carried most of my life is out of my head. I no longer need to bear its weight. Now it’s outside me in a book I can put down and pick up again. A book that is born and is now in the hands of you, the reader (and the heavenly support team). Phew!

Thank you for travelling this long road with me. I hope you’ll enjoy the fruits of my labours. See you at one of the events, I hope! Come and say hello.

Lots of love,

Edwina xx