What I remember: buying a ticket to Hebden Bridge on the train, certain that the conductor would judge me as another American Plath girl if I asked for Heptonstall. The tough climb uphill to the churchyard. The sweeping view across the moors on that bright summer’s day.

Moses went up the mountaintop for inspiration. But many of us writerly/painterly women go to Wellspring House—well, so do some guys, but mainly not. Mainly, it’s women. Mainly it’s women who need to get away from their houses, their spouses, their children, their jobs. Mainly it’s women who—despite the relative affordability of the retreat—are middle-class, middle-aged, and white. Of the roughly 1500 visitors (some repeat) over a fifteen-year period, most who find their way to Wellspring House

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