fifteenth annual writing down the baja
february 14 - 22, 2026
serendipity hotel
todos santos, bcs, mexico
Happy Valentine’s! The fifteenth annual Writing Down the Baja promises to be an exciting, fun and, above all, productive week. The retreat officially begins with a reception at Serendipity, 5:30 p.m., Saturday, February 14 and concludes with a public reading by all participants the evening of February 21.
Drawing inspiration from generative prompts, supplementary readings and the Baja itself, the focus of morning workshops will be to improve craft in both poetry and prose. This year, Writing Down the Baja welcomes guest faculty author and poet John Calderazzo and environmental writer SueEllen Campbell. Evening receptions will feature readings by all faculty, as well as a screening of a special documentary about the Baja, followed by a discussion of the film’s pertinence to challenges threatening Todos Santos and the region today. The week also includes a field trip led by a local naturalist and historian.
“Manuscript Lab” afternoon sessions are offered by faculty on select afternoons. These one-on-ones are for mapping a project, honing writing goals, or receiving critical feedback on a portion of a manuscript or collection of poems in development. A sign-up sheet will be posted. Poets, bring ten poems; prose writers, two chapters. There is an additional $65 fee per person per hour session.
To provide a sampling of local fare, some dinners will be off-site. They are included in the retreat fee. Please email any dietary preferences to info@writingranch.com.
The turtle nursery located on the beach that fronts Serendipity often releases baby Leatherback and Olive Ridley hatchlings at sunset during the week. And, when walking the beach during the day, keep your eyes peeled for glimpses of migrating gray whales.
Shuttle service is arranged for those arriving on February 14. The shuttle pick-up schedule from the San Jose del Cabo airport to Todos Santos will be emailed to you once your air travel plans are submitted. Please email your travel itinerary to info@writingranch.com. Participants are responsible for paying their portion of the shuttle ride plus tip. ONLY those of you arriving sooner than February 14 are responsible for arranging your own transportation. The return shuttle service on Sunday, February 22 will also be provided.
More 2026 Writing Down the Baja details will be announced soon! Questions in the meantime? Email info@writingranch.com.
2025 Writing Down the Baja Writers
Rates:
All-inclusive rate: $3,600 USD per person
The all-inclusive rates include single occupancy lodging at Serendipity, all meals both on- and off-site, seven daily workshops, evening receptions and presentations, field trip, pop-up workshops, and a published anthology of the group’s work. Double occupancy is available.
To reserve your spot at Serendipity for the all-inclusive retreat experience, send a deposit of $500 USD by November 15, 2025. Balance is due by December 16, 2025.
To qualify for an early bird discount of $150 USD, pay in full on or before November 15, 2025.
Payments can be made here or mailed to Writing Ranch, P.O. Box 640, Bend, OR 97709. Payment by check is preferred.
Restrictions:
Airfare not included.
Cost of ground transportation from and to San Jose del Cabo airport not included. (NOTE: Shuttle arrangements will be made by Writing Ranch and a shuttle will be waiting for participants at the San Jose del Cabo terminal.)
Transportation unrelated to Writing Down the Baja schedule (such as excursions to local beaches or downtown Todos Santos) is at participant’s expense.
Alcohol at all dinners at individual’s expense.
Day Student Rate: $820 USD
The day student rate includes seven daily workshops, welcome night and farewell dinners, evening receptions and presentations, field trip, and a copy of the 2026 anthology of participants’ writings. Cost of additional meals is paid separately.
Day students, please plan on attending all day sessions and evening presentations.
To register as a day student, send a deposit of $500 USD by November 15, 2025. Balance due by December 16, 2025. Payments can be made here or mailed to Writing Ranch, P.O. Box 640, Bend, OR 97709. Payment by check is preferred.
Cancellations:
If you cancel by December 6, 2025 your tuition will be refunded minus a $200 cancellation fee. Refunds for cancellations made after December 6, 2025 are contingent on being able to fill your space. If your place is not filled, the full deposit of $500 will be retained.
About the Faculty
“Best CSU Teacher” award winner John Calderazzo taught creative nonfiction for thirty years at Colorado State University, a job he loved deeply. John’s three nonfiction books include Rising Fire: Volcanoes & Our Inner Lives, about volcanoes around the world and human culture. He’s also the author of two poetry collections--The Exact Weight of the Soul: Poems and a new book, In the Soup. His short stories, poems and essays have appeared in Audubon, Georgia Review, High Country News, North American Review, Orion, Terrain.org, Witness, Writer’s Digest, and many other journals, plus anthologies such as Best American Nature Writing and Best Travel Adventure Stories. He’s the winner of the Carolina Quarterly Young Fiction Writers’ Prize and a Colorado Arts Council grant for creative writing. Before coming to CSU, he taught himself to survive as a freelance magazine writer publishing about, among other things, a grave digger, a boomerang-throwing champion, and a Buddhist forest-wandering monk. Post-retirement, he’s taught environmental scientists to use storytelling techniques to communicate with the public and decision-makers. He’s hiked in high mountains around the world, especially in the Andes, and also loves traveling widely with SueEllen.
SueEllen Campbell
For over 35 years, SueEllen Campbell has focused on writing about the complex experiences we can have in thinking about, learning about, and spending time in the natural world. She has published three books about this topic, Bringing the Mountain Home, Even Mountains Vanish: Searching for Solace in an Age of Extinction, and The Face of the Earth: Natural Landscapes, Science, and Culture. Excerpts from these books, stand-alone essays, reviews, and articles have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals; she co-edited two collections of nature essays; and she has evaluated many nature-oriented essays and book manuscripts for presses. As a professor of English at Colorado State University, she taught a wide variety of classes in both writing and reading the literature of nature.
Since about 2008, she has concentrated on climate change. She has taught classes, given talks, written about, and led workshops on how climate change intersects with nearly every aspect of life and course of study; on how best to communicate about this subject; and on how to cope with its emotional impacts. With John Calderazzo, she founded and directed Changing Climates at Colorado State, organizing roughly 120 talks for faculty, students, and the community. She created and for about a decade ran the website 100 Views of Climate Change, a collection of annotated links to some five hundred high-quality, multidisciplinary, accessible resources. And since 2018, she has written once or twice a month for the website Yale Climate Connections, again offering annotations and links to reader-friendly articles about a wide variety of climate topics.
Award winning author and poet Ellen Waterston has published four poetry and four literary nonfiction titles, including, most recently, We Could Die Doing This (2024) and Walking the High Desert (2020). She is founder of the Writing Ranch which, since 2000, has conducted workshops for established and emerging writers, and of the annual Waterston Desert Writing Prize, established in 2015 and adopted in 2019 as a program of the High Desert Museum. In 2024 she was appointed to a two year term as the eleventh Oregon Poet Laureate and awarded both the Literary Arts of Portland’s Stewart H. Holbrook and Soapstone Bread and Roses awards recognizing her work as an author and advocate for the literary arts. Based in central Oregon, she serves on the faculty of OSU-Cascades’ MFA in Creative Writing. Ellen is completing a fifth collection of poetry.
2025 Writing Down the Baja Anthology
