At the end of the summer, about 20 members of the Bad Bitch Book Club arrived in Door County, Wisconsin. Their plan was to read books provided by Simon & Schuster, talk about books, and simply relax.
According to Bad Bitch Book Club co-founder MacKenzie Newcomb, the trip capped off “a landmark year.” That’s saying a lot. Ever since the club launched in 2018 as an online community of book lovers, they’ve convened for reading retreats in New York, New Mexico, Florida, and Vermont. “The vibe of a Bad Bitch Book Club retreat is electric and comfortable at the same time,” explains co-founder Kaylynn Arnett-Sampson. “We can talk about the book we hated the most this year, or the one that made us cry the hardest. You’ll almost always find someone who agrees and even if they don’t, the likelihood that they ‘get’ you is extremely high.”
While the retreats usually attracts between 15 and 40 people, the club also hosts “summer camps” in Maine, where the number of “campers” is between 80 and 90. “We went to an adventure resort in Maine that I had gone to a lot as a child, and it was a huge success,” says Newcomb, noting that they’ll also be hosting a smaller “Historical Romance Retreat” in Lenox, Massachusetts with authors Sarah Maclean, Adriana Herrera, and Joanna Shupe this November.
Like any summer camp—or, any addictive novel, for that matter—it’s hard to say goodbye when a reading retreat ends. They’re more intimate than a literary festival and less crowded than a writing conference. Bookish people can connect with each other in a cozy setting and talk about books all day long and late into the night without apology. And, because nearly all reading retreats include food and activities, precious time isn’t spent making decisions about what to eat or do when not reading. “It’s less information-gathering and more grounding in nature with a page turner,” explains Lauren Blanford, founder of Lost Woods Farm & Forest, a 160-acre glamping resort in Boyne, Michigan, which already has three reading retreats scheduled for the summer of 2026 and offers extracurriculars like a wood-fired sauna, an outdoor massage among the butterflies, and a sound bath in a timber-frame, century-old barn.
Many organizers say they were inspired to create getaways they themselves wanted but couldn’t find. It was “my deep desire to be in a quiet space, feel the breeze on my face, and read a book without a care in the world,” Blanford says. “I didn’t find anything offered like that in the Midwest so I thought I would create it myself.”
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