SDW Summer Intensive +
Optional Spiritual Direction for Writers® Certified Guide Add-On

You Were Made to Write.

Let's Tend That Desire and Goal Together This Summer.

Spiritual Direction for Writers® Summer Intensive
June 2 – August 25, 2026 | Virtual | Summer Intensive Cohort (Space Is Limited)

You know you’re more of your full self when you’re writing and honoring your creative soul.

You don’t want to just produce word count. While you want to publish your writing, that isn’t your primary soul’s desire. What you want more is to write from a deep, unhurried, spiritually rooted place and have more of the writing life you want, more of the life you want.

Maybe that preferred version of your writing life feels far away right now. Perhaps it’s buried under everything else you carry—the obligations, the day job, the family responsibilities, the noise, the particular exhaustion that comes from giving so much of yourself to others to make sure they are flourishing.

This summer, let's unbury your creative soul and help you move towards the writing life you want. Let’s give attention to your ambition, your poems, stories, or essays. Let’s figure out how to make sure you have time and space to write because your creative practice is spiritual formation.

The Spiritual Direction for Writers® Summer Intensive is a 12-week small-group experience for writers who want to tend their writing life and their interior life at the same time, as the same thing.

Because your writing is not separate from your soul, and your soul is not separate from your writing.

[I'm Ready to Tend My Writing Life →]
After you apply, Charlotte will reach out within 48 hours to schedule an interview to make sure it’s a good fit.

The SDW Summer Intensive Is for You If…

  • You're a writer preparing to step into a new season—a fellowship, a manuscript, a new platform, a publishing journey—and you want to begin from a grounded, spiritually rooted place

  • You've been circling a project for months (or years) and need both accountability and soul care to move it forward

  • You carry deep vocational commitments—as a pastor, spiritual leader, spiritual director, therapist, professor, writing coach, or community leader—and you're ready to stop putting your writing last

  • You're tired of writing feeling like one more thing on your to-do list and ready for it to feel like what it actually is: a spiritual practice that forms you as much as any other contemplative and soulful activity

  • You want to flourish anyway—even in a summer that will be full and complicated and beautifully imperfect

What We'll Do Together

This is not a productivity program or a writing bootcamp. It's a sanctuary where you will be welcomed and supported in an intentional space. Everyone present will agree that our writing life and our spiritual life are tended together, and we will honor this community with care.

Over 12 weeks, you'll receive:

  • 7 Group Zoom sessions (every other Tuesday, 7–8:30 p.m. CT)—We'll gather, learn, share, practice honest community, and engage the contemplative heart of the writing vocation. These are the conversations and encounters you've been hungry for.

  • 1 Group Spiritual Direction for Writers® Session—A dedicated, contemplative space where we tend the spiritual dimensions of your writing life together, unhurried and without any pressure to be someone you aren’t.

  • 2 Individual 50-minute Spiritual Direction for Writers® Sessions with Charlotte—One at the beginning of the Intensive to set your intentions, one near the end to discern what you want for your writing and soul moving forward.

  • A Private Community Space to share wins, ask questions, and stay connected between sessions.

The Four Movements

The framework I use with Spiritual Direction for Writers® moves through four core practices. This summer, we tend all four.

Belonging
You'll write inside a community that gets it. You won’t have to explain yourself or apologize for your ambition or sensitivity. You will be with other people who care about the intersection of art and faith, writing and the imagination. You will be invited to come as you are.

Becoming
You'll clarify who you are as a writer right now, not who you think you should be. Through guided reflection, journaling invitations, and honest conversation, you'll find your footing and write from there.

Beholding
You'll practice noticing image, art, ideas, memories, nature, the small ordinary moments that are trying to become something interesting on the page. We'll slow down enough to receive what we see.

Bestowing
You'll move your work forward in ways that benefit you personally, as well as the broader world. You will discover how your writing is a gift, how your writing practice is a gift, how your writing soul is a gift. Whether you're drafting a manuscript, developing a proposal, preparing for a fellowship, or finally establishing a sustainable writing rhythm, you'll leave with real momentum that honors your body, mind, and soul.

What We’ll Cover in the Spiritual Direction for Writers® Summer Intensive

  • The Writing Life as Spiritual Practice: Laying the Foundation

  • Rhythms, Rituals, and Retreats: Making Space for What Matters

  • Voice, Identity, and What Only You Can Write

  • Community, Feedback, and Writing Toward Others

  • The Long Arc of a Writing Vocation

  • Platform and Publishing Without Losing Your Soul

  • The Journey Ahead: Reflection Practices and What You Want for the Future

Investment

$1700 paid in full by May 25, 2026
One-time payment— save $100

OR

$600/month for three months
Payments due on May 25, June 25, and July 25

A limited number of partial scholarships are available. Email charlotte@charlottedonlon.com. No elaborate explanation required. You're welcome here.

[Apply Now →]
Rolling applications are open. Space is limited.

Want to Help Other Writers Flourish?

Become a Certified Spiritual Direction for Writers® Guide

Available exclusively as an add-on to the Summer Intensive

You've found something that's changing your writing life and you're starting to wonder—could I offer this to others?

If you feel called not just to tend your own writing life but to help other writers tend theirs, the Spiritual Direction for Writers® Certified Guide Track is for you.

This add-on transforms the Summer Intensive into a training practicum, equipping you to offer similar services and sessions to the writers in your own community—your writing group, your congregation, your students, your clients.

What the Certification Track Adds

On top of everything included in the Summer Intensive, you'll also receive:

  • 3 Individual 75-Minute Custom and Individualized Supervision and Training Sessions with Charlotte
    These are dedicated to your development as a guide, not your own writing life. You'll debrief your practicum work, receive direct feedback, and develop the skills and confidence to accompany other writers well.

  • A Practicum Requirement
    You’ll conduct 4 SDW sessions with 1–2 writers of your choosing during the ten weeks, bringing those experiences into your supervision sessions with Charlotte.

  • A Written SDW Practicum Reflection
    An 800–1,000 word integrative essay reflecting on what you learned about yourself as a guide and about the writers you accompanied.

  • Charlotte's Facilitation Materials‍ ‍
    Session frameworks, spiritual direction philosophy traniing, contemplative practices and prompts she uses with her own directees, formatted for your use.

  • A Certified SDW Guide listing on the Spiritual Direction for Writers® website upon completion

Spiritual Direction for Writers® Certified Guide Track Investment

Summer Intensive+ Certification Track

  • 7 Group Sessions

  • 1 Group SD session

  • 2 Individual SDW Sessions

  • 3 Individual Supervision & Training sessions

  • 4 Practicum Sessions You Lead

  • SDW Facilitation Materials

  • SDW Certified Guide Listing

Add the Certification Track for $1300
(paid in full with your Intensive enrollment or with the first of your three payments)

Is the Spiritual Direction for Writers® Certified Guide Track For You?

This track is for writers who:

  • Already have a community of writers they serve—or are building one

  • Work in ministry, education, therapy, spiritual direction, or creative community building

  • Feel called to integrate the SDW framework into their existing vocation

  • Are ready to do the reflective, rigorous work of learning to accompany others well

It is not for everyone. The practicum requirement is real, the supervision sessions are substantive, and the reflection essay is taken seriously. This is a credential worth having because the training behind it is worth doing.

How to Add the Spiritual Direction for Writers® Certified Guide Track

Go through the regular application process. During your interview with Charlotte, let her know you are interested in adding the SDW Certified Guide Track to your Summer Intensive.

Certification track spots are limited to 4 writers — half the cohort maximum — to ensure Charlotte can give each guide-in-training the attention they deserve.

[Apply for the Summer Intensive + Certification Track →]

You will receive an email within 48 hours of paying the application fee. We will set up the interview conversation and go from there.

FAQ

Do I need prior spiritual direction training?
No. The Summer Intensive and the SDW Certified Guide Track do not require you to be a spiritual director, although current spiritual directors are welcome to participate.
Please Note: Neither offering is a spiritual direction training course or offering. The SDW Certified Guide Track is available to spiritual directors, pastors, writing coaches, professors, spiritual leaders, and anyone who wants to offer similar services. Only people with previous spiritual direction training can offer similar services as spiritual directors.

What if I don't finish my practicum sessions?
Because of the nature of this training, no refunds will be given. Charlotte will work with you to extend your deadline so you can complete all of the Spiritual Direction for Writers® Certified Guide requirements.

Can I apply and participate in these offerings if I'm not Christian?
Yes. As a Christian in the Episcopal church who believes the tenets of the Nicene Creed, Charlotte employs a universal framework of belonging and connection in her spiritual direction work. She fosters meaningful, soulful conversations and gatherings that are welcoming to all—regardless of faith tradition or spiritual inclinations. Charlotte has several clients who aren’t Christians. All are welcome to apply.

About Charlotte

Charlotte Donlon is the creator and founder of Spiritual Direction for Writers®. She holds a certificate in Spiritual Direction and an MFA in Creative Writing. She is the author of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other,‍ ‍Spiritual Direction for Writers: Everyday Rituals for Your Writing Life, Take More Retreats anthology, and The Great Belonging Project.

Charlotte is recognized as a leading expert at the intersection of writing and spiritual direction. She has spent more than eight years helping writers tend both the craft and the soul of their writing vocation.

She believes your writing life deserves the same quality of attention you give everyone else.

[Learn more about Charlotte →]

Questions?

Email charlotte@charlottedonlon.com or schedule a free 20-minute conversation.

Spiritual Direction for Writers® has helped thousands of people—readers, clients, retreat participants, etc.—make time for their writing. Now they have the writing lives they've always wanted.