Milford Writing Institute’s 2026 Spring Program: Cascais, Portugal
Chuffed to announce that I have been invited by the Fundação Dom Luis I — an arts & culture foundation in Cascais, Portugal — to be their international writer-in-residence from March 31 to April 30, 2026. I am touched. Cascais is where I was born, where I had the happiest moments of my childhood, and I can’t wait to return, at this stage in life, to see what new works get stirred up by the smells of grilled sardines and spit-roasted cabrito.
But here’s the point of this missive: I’ve decided to use one of my writer-in-residence weeks to host the Milford Writing Institute’s Spring 2026 Program in the beautiful village where I was born, often referred to as the “Portuguese Riviera.”
This luxurious MWI event will be an international food-and-writing retreat for amateur-to-mid-level writers, and will involve having one unique Portuguese culinary event every day, a prompt to trigger an hour or two of sensory-driven writing in the afternoon. At the end of the retreat week, I will assemble everyone’s food-larded work and create a stylish zine with bylines from all the MWI’s attendees. This digital magazine will then be distributed globally by the Cascais Tourist Board. So the MWI Spring 2026 Program guarantees to be luxurious, serve up unique culinary experiences, and end in a byline for all attendees, fulfilling the MWI’s mission to create writing experiences that mix “leisure with learning.”
If you are interested in possibly attending this event during a yet TBD week in April 2026, drop me a line at richard@richardcmorais.com with “Portugal” in the header, and I will put you on the “guest” list and make sure you get the details as soon as they are available. I am currently lining up the retreat’s surprises with the help of the Cascais government. (Teaser: If all goes well, we will be staying in the former King of Italy’s villa in Cascais, where Umberto II went into exile after the Italian monarchy was abolished in 1946.)
