Jamberoo Abbey Group Writers Residency 2026
For a week in March, a group of eleven local writers stayed at the gorgeous Jamerboo Abbey for the SCWC 2026 Group Writers Retreat. I was lucky enough to be one of them.
The residency provided a peaceful, distraction-free environment for us writers to focus on and develop our projects. The types of projects varied greatly among us: some of us were poets, some established novelists, some emerging scholars. The writers selected to participate included: Emily Gray, Bron Xavier, Christine Sykes, Jane Fullerton-Smith, Alyssa Montgomery, Holden Walker, Alisha Brown, Lindsay Fisher, Mya Hicks (me), Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman, and Amy Fairall.
“I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to attend this retreat…Everyone I have met is so supportive and interesting! The retreats are so well set up to support writers in a creative environment and to let them be at their own pace. I feel my confidence as a writer has grown a lot thanks to this experience.”
The Abbey, run by Benedictine Nuns, is located on Jamberoo Mountain Road. There is a profound sense of peace at The Abbey, which can be attributed to its isolation and relaxing scenery. The Abbey is its own world up in the clouds, and feels much farther than it is from the town. Our week was backdropped by a fog that blanketed the mountainside, and sudden storms followed by fleeting bursts of sunshine. The silence within the cottages was occasionally broken by the sound of a motorbike making the hairpin turn on the pass or the jubilant laugh of a kookaburra.
A tree-lined road led the way from our cottages to the Abbey, where the nuns live and practice within the small church. While it wasn’t required that we attend the church, the Nuns were exceptionally kind and welcoming. Many of us writers appreciated the beautifully sung hymns and found the church services reflective and calming after a long day at the writing desk.
Our group meetings each morning provided valuable time to gain feedback and discuss our craft. The variation in our professional experience and chosen forms in which we write meant we were able to receive insight and advice from a range of perspectives. The South Coast Writers Centre staff, Sarah Nicholson and Julie Keys, who acted as coordinators for the retreat, were also incredibly supportive.
“Being among other writers was very beneficial for me…There was a good atmosphere between us, and the sharing of work and subsequent feedback was excellent. We each brought our own ideas and perspectives to the table, and I, for one, learned a great deal from the other writers.”
Personally, I used my time at The Abbey to make headway on a novel I’ve been drafting for about a year. It’s my first time attempting to write a novel, and my first time writing a sustained project on my own since graduating from the University of Wollongong two years ago. Like many other writers, my writing time often takes place in small snatches between all my other life commitments, usually after work and before bed. This residency gifted me the opportunity to focus entirely on my novel without any distractions. This meant I was able to write the same amount each day at the Abbey as I’d normally struggle to achieve in a whole week. The encouragement from the other writers at this early stage in the drafting process also gave me much-needed optimism to persevere through this process and the confidence that I can complete my project.
The Jamberoo Abbey residency was an extremely useful and valuable opportunity provided by the SCWC, and one I certainly would recommend to any emerging or established authors.