A dream of an island: on Sapelo Island, an idea takes form as a haven for the artists of the word.

Dreams have a funny way of simply just "sitting there" unless the dreamer gets up off her butt and gets to work. I'm not preaching. I'm testifying. Not just about my dream, but also about my assignment. I have just returned from Sapelo Island, Georgia, one of the most beautiful and pristine of the string of Sea Islands off the continental southeastern coast, having wrapped up a 15-year-old dream of mine. Namely, a retreat for emerging African American writers to learn, share, grow and be inspired and empowered.

The first Sea Island Writers Retreat: three, four-day retreats of workshops, writing groups, informal discussion and lectures, was a dream I had been envisioning, nurturing and playing with from the moment I first set foot on Sapelo. I knew even then that the spit of land off the mainland about 50 miles south of Savannah held treasures for me as an artist and a writer.

I knew it was just the place for a writers' retreat, especially one for black folks--and I wanted to do it.

I find that the things we accomplish are like the books we write. They are the books we ourselves want to read. The Sea Island Writers Retreat--the retreat I founded in 2004--is the refuge I wanted to attend when I was an emerging writer decades ago.

First, I had yearned to escape the workaday world where I went about my quotidian tasks and routines and travel to an isolated place filled with natural beauty and silence for my writers retreat. And I wanted the environment of that writers' haven to be as meaningful to me as an African American woman as it was to me as an artist. I had spent a brief time in Upstate New York near a famous retreat and although beautiful, the place did not speak to me.

For me, Sapelo Island filled the bill. The moment the visitor alights from the ferry, the Anne Marie, she is met with astonishing natural beauty. From the wide vistas of saltwater marshes teeming with wildlife (great blue herons, Atlantic blue crabs, black and gold fritillary butterflies, mating lovebugs) to the majestic live oaks with whirls of Spanish moss entangled in their limbs to the wide sandy beaches with names (Nanny Goat Beach and Cabrillou) that sound like song titles, the island beckons the appreciative exploring group or the solitary writer seeking inspiration. And the Sea Islands' connection to slavery and freedom and the backbone of all my history seems to hang around there, in the lives of Geechee-Gullah people, in their soft distinctive accents, and in the very air.

Scribbling in the Dark

Next, I longed to be led through the basics and intricacies of first-rate writing by someone who had been there, a published and respected writer who not only knew the ropes, but a sensitive soul who also remembered how it had felt not to know them. I dreamed of editors, novelists, memoirists reading my seminal work and discussing it with me and my peers, offering suggestions, pointing out where I had hit and where I had missed the mark.

This is where the generous spirit of African American writers and editors who joined us on Sapelo came into full chorus. For one, Blanche Richardson, an extraordinary writer and editor--as natural and skilled an editor as Michael Jordan is a basketball player--had so much to share with the eager retreat participants that one evening at my third announcement to her editing workshop that it was time for dinner, I found Blanche lecturing away in the fading last light of first dark and the participants all scribbling away on pads they could barely see.

"Hey, lil' school girls," I warned like a stern spinster principal, "dinner's getting cold."

"Okay, okay, I just have one final point to covet," Blanche promised as her eager students shouted, "Wait! Wait! What was No. 4 again? What was No. 47" I chuckled and gave them another five minutes, reluctant to disrupt the inspiring scene of writers immersed in learning how to hone their craft.

Even in the dark, I could see, truly see, these emerging writers revel in this world of words that we had spent the preceding days talking about, entering and exploring. This is where they now lived. In a few days, they had not only discovered this world inhabited by anyone bold, brave and disciplined enough to enter. But they had realized that they themselves belonged there.

"All of Ya'll?"

Finally, I ached to spend time in the company of other writers like myself. That, too, happened at the retreat. It happened during breakfast, in the rocking chairs on the porch of The Wallow Lodge that the retreaters shared, on early morning walks down dusty roads around the island, late at night sharing Krispy Kreme donuts and reading each other's works/stories.

Folks ask me, "why are you doing this writers retreat? Don't you have enough to do? Anyway, what can people learn in four days that they haven't learned by themselves their whole lives?"

Shoot, I say, they can learn plenty. A life can be changed in a moment, to say nothing of four days. I saw it happen on Sapelo. I saw individuals who got off the ferry on Thursday unsure of what they were doing there get back on that same ferry on Sunday with a self-assurance that made me blush with pride. After the first retreat in September, I overheard a fellow ferry passenger ask one of out retreaters, "What group are you? What were ya'll doing on Sapelo?" I smiled as she replied, "We're writers."

"All of ya'll?" he asked with amazement, as he inspected the group of more than a dozen chattering laughing black women.

"All of us," she said.

I established the Sea Island Writers Retreats a year ago. And I plan to do it again this year and next year and the next year and the next and the next because a writer has no higher calling than to write and to help other writers do the same.

That's my dream. That's my assignment.

Tina McElroy Ansa, a filmmaker, journalist and the author of four novels, is at work on her fifth book. She has been named the 2005 recipient of the Stanley W. Lindberg Award. She is the author of Baby of the Family, Ugly Ways, The Hand I Fan With and You Know Better. Her best-selling novels are all set in the mythical Georgia town of Mulberry.

See You There

The dates for the 2005 retreats are:

September 15-18

October 20-23

November 17-20

Registration and fees must be paid three weeks before the beginning of each retreat. The registration fee is $1200 (25 percent nonrefundable). Please send your money order or cashier's check to: Sea Island Writers Retreat, P.O. Box 20602. St. Simons Island, GA 31522.

A limited number of spaces are available. For more information, log on to www.tiamcelroyansa.com.