Dear friends,
We are delighted to introduce the programme for our 3-day Annual Salon happening in Madrid this September.
We hope you’ll agree that it’s unlike anything else, offering 3 days of creativity, inspiration, community and a chance to explore the beautiful literary city of Madrid.
More than 120 people from Europe and beyond (as far away as New Zealand) have already booked. We still have a small number of places left and hope you will join us. We want to meet you!
European Writers Salon is a travelling salon made by writers, for writers, that hosts events all over Europe. Once a year, we host our Annual Salon, which takes place over 3 days and gives attendees a chance to build community, get to know a European city and steep themselves in a creative programme designed to stimulate ideas and new writing.
This year we’ll be in Madrid, and our theme is ‘The Age Of…’. Through this theme we will explore how well we can understand an age while we are living through it and the writer’s role in defining and writing about the present – or exploring and reimagining past ages.
The programme is varied, and you can joins us for as many or few things as you like, dipping in and out and creating your own individual experience of Madrid. Some examples of what will be happening:
Early Morning Yoga in beautiful Retiro Park
A bookstore crawl around some of Madrid’s best bookstores, exploring interesting neighbourhoods along the way
Two literary salons featuring an exciting mix of writers from around Europe – writing and reading in different styles and genres
Our keynote panel featuring Yael Van Der Wouden, Nussaibah Younis and Jacobo Bergareche
A whole host of workshops, panels, exploratory and walking sessions
Our events are not like formal conference. Every participant is invited to take part in shaping and contributing to the programme. There is no hierarchy and all are welcome – whether you’re an experienced writer or just beginning. Everyone will find something for them.
We work hard to be inclusive and welcoming. Last year, 100% of attendees rated the event as ‘friendly’, which we consider our greatest success.
We really hope you will join us and become part of our travelling community.
Yes! We have a small number of full weekend tickets, Sat/Sun tickets and bursary tickets available.
We also have a Saturday evening–only option aimed at local writers.
We really want to make it possible for as many people as possible to come. If you have looked at this and still find the price unaffordable, get in touch and we’ll see what we can do to help. We want to share this experience with you!
Here are some of the writers who’ll be leading panels, discussions and workshops.
(From left to right: Yael van der Wouden, Jacobo Bergareche, Nussaibah Younis, Mariano Peyrou, Christopher Allen, Yara Zgheib)
Yael van der Wouden was born in 1987 and lives and works in The Netherlands. The Safekeep*, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024. It won the 2026 Women’s Prize and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Wingate Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The Safekeep, which traces how private lives unfold under the long shadow of historical forces, speaks perfectly to our theme.
*If you buy with this link we earn a small commission.
Jacobo Bergareche is a Spanish writer and screenwriter. His first novel, The Perfect Days, received a special mention in the European Union Prize for Literature and was chosen as one of the best Spanish books of 2021 by Babelia and El Confidencial. He has written a second novel, Las despedidas; a book of poems, Playas; a play, Coma; a children’s book series, Aventuras en Bodytown; and an autobiographical essay based on the murder of his brother in Angola, ‘Estaciones de regreso’.
Dr Nussaibah Younis is a writer, academic, peacebuilding practitioner and globally recognised expert on contemporary Iraq. Her debut novel Fundamentally won the Comedy Women in Print Prize and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize in 2025. For several years, she advised the Iraqi government on proposed programs to de-radicalise women affiliated with ISIS. Dr Younis was a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC, where she directed the Task Force on the Future of Iraq. She has published Op-Eds in the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and the New York Times. She was born in the UK to an Iraqi father and a Pakistani mother, and currently lives in London.
Mariano Peyrou is a storyteller, essayist, musician, and poet. He is the author of poetry collections Niños enamorados, El año del cangrejo, and Posibilidades en la sombra; the short story collection La tristeza de las fiestas; the novels De los otros, Los nombres de las cosas and Lo de dentro fuera; and the non-fiction books Tensión y sentido and Oídos que no ven. Mariano will convene a performance of four poets from Madrid, which will be a weekend highlight.
Christopher Allen is the owner and editor-in-chief of SmokeLong Quarterly and the author of the flash fiction collection Other Household Toxins and the episodic satire Conversations with S. Teri O’Type. Allen’s work has appeared in Best Small Fictions twice, Flash Fiction America (W.W. Norton), The Bath Flash Fiction Award anthologies and over 100 journals. Allen and his husband are nomads.
Yara Zgheib is the author of No Land to Light On, which was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and chosen by The Washington Post, The L.A. Times, Newsweek and others as one of the top ten books of 2022. Her first novel, The Girls at 17 Swann Street, was an Indie Next, People, and Barnes and Noble pick for Best Books of 2019. She is the recipient of the 2023 Rose Metal Award for her forthcoming book of prose-poetry and music, Dust and Ions, to be released and performed in 2027. She is currently completing her third novel, Why Paris., and a poetry collection, Cartography.
Yara is a Fulbright scholar and Alexandra Quinn fellow. She was born in Beirut and lives in Paris, and her heart is in both places.
On Friday night, please join us for drinks, dinner and one of our intimate and exciting salons at Impact Hub, Alameda. Make new friends, hear words from around Europe and maybe even read your own. Only 10 full weekend tickets are left, so book quickly if you want to join.
On Saturday, we’ll spend the day at Impact Hub. Sessions include:
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror:” The role and power of art in a time of hate – A discussion about the role and responsibility of literature – and art in general – to fight the hate and violence in the world with truth and beauty. Drawing on the works of Natalia Ginzburg, Anna Akhmatova, Italo Calvino, Viktor Shklovsky and other greats of European literature who fought back against the horrors of war with their words, we will discuss why we write poems and novels and make art, and the power art can have, especially in times like these. We will then write our own texts.
Inside the queue: how lit mags evaluate your work (+ critique) – Sending our writing to magazines can feel like shoving it into a black hole. Who reads it? What are they looking for? In this panel and critique session, three lit mag readers will share an inside look at how they read the queue, sharing common reasons stories are rejected and what makes them fall in love with one. We will also welcome up to 10 stories from the audience to evaluate the first page of each as if it came through the queue and share our high-level feedback.
The streets that inspired Madrid’s greatest writers – The streets and facades of Lavapies hide many secrets and unknown stories, from the haircuts and books of Ramón y Cajal to the bombs of the Civil War, and from the coloured tiles of a former fish shop to a restored cinema and Gloria Fuertes’ writing corner under a bull’s head. In our walking tour, we show how these streets have harboured and inspired Madrid’s literary greats (Pío Baroja, Díaz Cañabate, Ernest Hemingway), and how each colourful shop and bar front is a shining celebration of how the past shares a space with a very modern capital. This activity, led by local bookstore owners, will appeal to both writers and readers who want to learn how to see beyond the surface and find the substance behind any good story, and how the city itself can often be an engaging character.
First-timers salon – Have you always wanted to read for an audience but felt too nervous? Would you like to read to a warm and supportive audience of other first-timers? If so, this is the (unintimidating) salon for you!
Getting your manuscript ready to send – You’ve finished your novel. Now comes the harder part: evaluating what’s on the page. This workshop focuses on the final stage of editing – the point at which a manuscript either becomes compelling and publishable or remains overwritten, over-explained, and static. Designed for writers preparing to submit to agents, publishers, or competitions, this session combines close reading, practical editorial strategies, and discussion of real late-stage manuscript challenges.
The fourth dimension: bending time on the page – If an extraterrestrial were observing the earth from 60 million light years away, they’d be observing dinosaurs on a planet happily devoid of humans. Point of view and perception are everything when it comes to time. On Earth, the arrow of time is usually felt linearly from past to present, but on paper we have to power to subvert this. We have so many ways to imagine time in a narrative and so many reasons to do so. In this workshop, we’ll challenge the way our characters – and subjects in creative nonfiction – move through time, experimenting with ways to speed up, slow down, and bend the reader’s perception of time on the page.
On Sunday, we’ll have a relaxed morning out and about in the beautiful city of Madrid. Options will include:
Literary-inspired walking tour of Madrid led by a professional guide, taking in some of Madrid’s most famous tourist spots and some unknown gems
Prompts in the park – follow creative prompts, bring a notepad and something to sit on and explore some inspiring corners of the city with your writing guides
Quiet writing in an inspiring space in the city. Bring your laptop or pens and paper and join other writers
Ekphrastic writing workshop – be inspired by the art and join other writers to reflect and write in a beautiful museum space
Yoga session – bring your mat if you can, as we will take some time to relax together before we write
Madrid is a foodie paradise, and we hope you’ll get a taste of that whilst you’re with us. Your full weekend ticket includes drinks and dinner on Friday night and coffee and lunch on Saturday. Our food will be delicious and freshly prepared, and we can cater for vegetarians, vegans and those with allergies and intolerances as long as you let us know in advance.
We hope you’ll come away from our weekend with renewed energy and creativity, and a host of new friends, connections and community. We know many people will come alone and that many writers are introverts or neuro-diverse, and we’ve designed the weekend with this in mind.
Our venue has a range of spaces – large, small, quiet and busy. And sessions will be a mix of large and small. Feel free to attend all sessions or drop in and out as you please.
Our weekend hosts will be on hand to welcome you and provide advice, as will the rest of our Steering Group and Management Committee.
We look forward to welcoming you as part of the European Writers Salon – a community for all of us.
For details of our other events in Paris and online, please read our last newsletter here.
Warmly,
Deborah and The EWS Team
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.