Heidi Armbruster and Mary Bacon wanted to start a writers group for actresses. Mary saw one of Heidi’s plays at Chautauqua Theater Company while she was performing in a Molly Smith Metzler play at CTC. The two were cast in a reading together the following spring, and they began discussing their mutual want to create support and space for their writing. The pair’s initial aim was to host a personal retreat, but as Mary has close ties to Dorset Theatre Festival and had seen the company blossom under Dina Janis’s artistic leadership, Mary approached Dina about lending the pair institutional support. After Mary’s initial email about establishing a women artists writing group retreat at Dorset, Dina and then-Managing Director Molly Hennighausen wrote back, “YES. This is what we should be supporting!”