Master Skills Workshop with Esteemed Editor Patti Gauch and Noted Author Gary D. Schmidt

In Person: Sunday, November 8 - Saturday, November 14, 2026
Location: Caboose Farm, Sabillasville, MD

Gary Schmidt and Patti Gauch team up for our orignal, foundational workshop. 

We will come together for a week of workshops, craft talks, one-on-one editing and mentoring sessions, and readings.

The heart of our days will be good writerly work. In large group sessions, we'll talk about the major elements of fiction and how those might be used in your stories. In small group sessions, we'll focus on your writing, workshopping it and testing it for voice, for meaning, for alternate perspectives and for point of view. You'll learn to hone your writing skills as we workshop and come away, we hope, with a stronger sense of writerly gifts, with a new community of writers, and with pieces that might be sent out into the world to reach young audiences.

This class is for experienced writers ready to work hard! You will write and learn from morning until night. You will be given on the spot prompts and writing assignments with short turn around times, and you will be expected to make revisions and edits as well. If you are someone who does not like writing under pressure, this is not the workshop for you, and we encourage you to explore our mentorship and retreat programs which are more self-driven.

Important Details

Location

Caboose Farm is located in Sabillasville, MD, conveniently accessible from at least four different airports: DC, Dulles, Harrisburg, and Baltimore. We encourage participants to share Ubers or Lyfts or to split the cost of a car rental in order to attend. Once on the property you do not need a car.

Lodging

Students will share the multiple houses on Caboose Farm’s property for sleeping and writing. Each house is different, but comes with the usual bedrooms, bathrooms, living room, and kitchen.  

Your tuition includes a private bedroom with a shared bathroom in the hall. (Within this category we have numerous queen and king bedrooms, including one bright, basement king room with a full window.) 

Participants may upgrade to a private rooms with a private bathroom. PLEASE NOTE: Upgraded rooms are in the furthest building from the our main gathering spot, about an 8 minute walk. Some folks may prefer to drive to and from that location.

If you are looking to bring your lodging cost down, there is one twin room and three Queen basement bedrooms with shared baths. These basement rooms are not especially bright, but you have access to your entire house as well as a large, window-filled common workspace. Please reach out to us before registering to receive your discount code for taking a twin or basement room.

Work Space: Each house has a kitchen table. Additionally, the property features a bright, three-story event space with windows overlooking the property. Each floor has tables where you can work. There will be at least one "quiet" work floor and one chatting floor in the event space.

Food

Breakfast: Students are responsible for their own breakfasts. There is a Wegmans grocery store 25 minutes away, and a Weis’s grocery store 12 minutes away by car. We encourage students to do a shop on their way to their event on the first day. Some participants will use Instacart.

Lunch and Dinner: Will be provided by a private chef, who will also supply dessert. Snacks, beverages, and wine will be provided each day.

Refund & Payment Policies

• Your tuition must be paid in full at registration. If you require a payment plan, please click on the pink Klarna button at checkout.

• REFUNDS: We highly recommend you purchase travel insurance for this event. OUR WORKSHOPS ARE NONREFUNDABLE. Over the last two years, we’ve had an increasing number of last-minute cancellations. While these are often due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, as a small business, we cannot absorb such losses.

• CREDIT: Accepted participants who withdraw prior to September 1 MAY receive WRW credit minus $500 IF we can fill their spot from the waitlist.

PLEASE NOTE: We continue to give tremendous thought to your health and safety as well as the health and safety of our staff and instructors. We have chosen a location with ample outdoor space, but we recognize it is November. For the safety of our instructors and attendees, we ask everyone to exercise caution for the two weeks prior to our workshop.

Workshop Size

13 writers