Welcome to Typing in the Blast Radius: introductions, practicalities and settling in
4:30–6:30
Opening Workshop
6:30–8:30
Collective dinner
8:45 onward
Informal conversation, independent writing — or sleep for ye of long travel!
Tuesday, 16 February — Writing from Inside It
Time
Programme
7:00–9:00
Quiet morning / optional early swim
9:00–9:30
Breakfast / optional Morning Pages in the conservatory
9:30–11:30
Workshop
11:30–12:00
Tea break
12:00–1:00
Guided Writing: Meanwhile — write the ordinary thing happening beside the enormous thing
1:00–2:00
Lunch
2:00–6:30
Open Afternoon — protected writing time, reading, wandering, or optional one-to-one manuscript conferences
6:30–7:30
Collective dinner with our writing tutor
7:45–9:00
After Dark — sharing great words from great authors
9:00 onward
Informal gathering / independent writing / free time
Wednesday, 17 February — Making Something from the Wreckage
Time
Programme
7:00–9:00
Quiet morning / optional early swim
9:00–9:30
Breakfast / optional Morning Pages in the conservatory
9:30–11:30
Workshop
11:30–12:00
Tea break
12:00–1:00
Guided Writing: The Absurd Thing — using humour, contradiction, exaggeration and strangeness when reality has stopped behaving reasonably
1:00–2:00
Lunch
2:00–4:00
Open Afternoon — independent writing, optional ramble or wander, reading, or one-to-one manuscript conferences
4:00–4:30
Tea and cake
4:30–5:30
Reciprocity: Gathering Stories — conversations centred on protection, displacement, refuge and rebuilding
5:30–6:30
Break
6:30–7:30
Collective dinner
7:45–9:15
Typing in the Blast Radius Open Mic Night — participant readings, fragments, stories and works in progress
9:15 onward
Fireside gathering / independent writing / free time
Thursday, 18 February — What Survives
Time
Programme
7:00–8:00
Quiet morning / optional early swim
8:00–9:00
Breakfast / optional Morning Pages in the conservatory
9:00–9:45
Working Breakfast: Where Does the Work Go? — sharing our experiences with editors, submissions, agents and publication possibilities
9:45–10:30
Closing Guided Writing: What Survives — choose one thing the fire does not get and begin there
10:30–11:00
Closing Circle — and don’t forget to autograph the Story Burn canvas!
11:00
Retreat concludes
Core Anchor Texts
Used in Workshops and at Readings
We’ll read selected excerpts together. There is no expectation that you arrive having read any of these works. You’re welcome to bring other texts that speak to the week’s theme, or just to enjoy the collection presented.
Jenny Offill — Weather
Climate dread, political anxiety and the strange experience of carrying on with ordinary life while catastrophe hums in the background.
Tove Jansson — The Moomins and the Great Flood
Making something tender, strange and imaginative while the real world is at war—and the enduring human longing for safety, home and one another.
Astrid Lindgren — Pippi Longstocking
Play, irreverence and imaginative freedom: creating a joyfully unruly heroine against the darkness and authoritarianism of wartime Europe.
J.R.R. Tolkien — The Lord of the Rings
Building an enormous imaginary world while the real one is at war—and asking what fantasy, fellowship, courage and hope can offer when darkness feels overwhelming.
Omar El Akkad — American War
War brought terrifyingly close to home: how violence, displacement and political fracture reshape ordinary lives.
Jonathan Glazer — The Zone of Interest (film)
Living beside catastrophe: habituation, complicity, and the terrible human capacity to allow suffering to become part of the background of ordinary life.
Agnès Varda — Cléo from 5 to 7 (film)
Private catastrophe in an indifferent world: waiting for life-changing news while everyone and everything around you simply carries on.
