TAmong the things that Anna Maria Ortese wrote, there is this: «after Italy, there is perhaps no other country in the world where every inhabitant has writing as their highest ambitionand there are few others where what each one writes slides, so to speak, onto the other’s attention, like rain on glass.” This, and other texts, were collected by Adelphi in From Moby Dick to the White Bear.
We are a people obsessed with (our) pen therefore. That is to say: we write a lot, we read little. And who knows if behind this business of thinking in front of a blank sheet of paper there are not only ambitions but also something else. That is, the need to have a room of one’s own where one can hole up and emerge “cured”. The suspicion is legitimate and comes from the number of “book retreats”, stays dedicated to writing and reading books, which can now also be found in Italy: a trend, landed from America, which has a guaranteed effect. Wellbeing.
Place a pine forest by the sea. Or a castle, a historic centre, a world heritage site, an island, a neighborhood immersed in silence. Organize a package – writing course, dinner with local products and tourist trips – and the weekend is done. Those who choose holidays with pen and notebook are mainly women of all ages (from twenty to seventy) who want to “isolate” themselves from the world to listen to themselves, study and transform themselves. Without yoga and meditation, but with books: perfect for stimulating the brain, developing empathy and making you feel part of a community. These are the new literary retreats that always sell out.
In book retreats in search of peace, silence and reading. (Getty Images)
Book Retreat with Nadia Terranova
«I prefer to talk about “retirement” or “residence”» he says Nadia Terranova who he keeps them at the Castle of Santa Severa. «Italian immediately suggests the idea of alienating yourself from the world because in fact you have to alienate yourself a little to write well. I ask those who come to write stories linked to a place although people often want to go through their personal history again to be able to look at it differently. They rarely have literary ambitions. Gothic and magical lyrics always come out in the end. And I open myself up to wonder together with them” he concludes.
At literary retreats you go in search of time and space and empty your mind. According to the New York Times, the phenomenon has exploded with communities such as the Bad Bitch Book Club, born on Facebook and becoming a summer camp for twenty-year-old readers. In fact, Generation Sometimes the writers themselves suggest them: Terranova highlights the books of her life “because they are always good”. Or The Cinnamon Shops by Bruno Schulz and Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes.
Reading, writing and healing
«A girl who had recently lost her mother, and had closed in on herself, through the shared experience she managed to unlock herself” says Giulia Marchetti Of Tuscia Art lab which organizes retreats with visits to the Cistercian abbey and the Doria Pamphili palace, food and wine events and walks in the chestnut grove in San Martino al Cimino, a 17th century town in the Viterbo area.
Yes, writing in certain conditions can also be therapeutic. Valentina Bassi, psychotherapist and founder ofThree Evolution Academy that organizes intensive narrative counseling seminars in a reserve on the sea of Cecina, among the hills of the Oltrepò Pavese and in Rome. «Our seminars integrate the archetypal model of the Hero’s Path with autobiographical writing» specifies Bassi. «Personal narrative is explored to facilitate access to unconscious levels of experience. Through narrative exercises, one finally recognizes key passages of one’s existence” he concludes.
Writing, silence and digital detox
You drop everything, go exploring new places and imaginaries, and you do it with a group. And maybe even a writer coach. He is the figure involved by the BCS Media publishing house which relies on a specialized agency to create literary retreats. «I help eliminate interference to enhance people’s potential» says coach Romana Vona from her retreat in Matera. «Interferences are the doubts, the limits we think we have. I often follow people with emotional blocks or who have abandoned a book written years ago, or who want to make a dream come true and don’t know where to start” he concludes.
AtHermit, a secular hermitage immersed in an Umbrian reserve, there is no connection for cell phoneswe dine in silence and by candlelight, and we sleep in the friars’ “celluzze”. Participating are almost all solo travelers and a few couples. «Imagine about twenty people sitting and listening to philosophical theories» says Igor Sibaldi, philologist and writer who holds the courses. «They ask questions, they want to transform problems into projects. They listen to each other and confide in each other. Everyone has a notebook and writes» says Sibaldi who in November will talk about “desires” starting from his book Rebelling against destiny.
At the Eremito, a secular hermitage immersed in an Umbrian reserve, reading and writing courses are held. PHOTO Marco Ravasini
And what is writing if not a tool for knowing yourself (and changing your destiny)? «Saturday starts with showing up. That is to say we wonder what your book is and what your greatest fear is, certainly not what your job is. Then I read a text and invite everyone to write a letter that has its roots in childhood” he says Chiara Gamberale who organizes weekends inside CreaVitythe training space that opened in the Monti district of Rome. «Alongside writing, we also open ourselves up to different art forms because we talk about ourselves in a different way. He draws guided by poetic suggestions. Theater is created through improvisation with a director. We dance knowing that any conscious movement of the body is, in fact, dance. You write the lyrics to a song. My weekends are an opportunity to “really retreat” and return to inner silence. I often read pages of Close to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector, it reminds us that the most important journey is the one that brings us back close to who we are” he concludes.
The written word like a fire that comforts
Cultivating spirituality with books is also a way to imagine yourself elsewhere and start again. But it’s not a given. «Think about how much it costs us today to stop and open a book. Reading is an act of faith, finding the time to write is a miracle” he says Sarah Barberis, writer who holds a “week” of retreat in Stromboli on behalf of the Belleville school. «The written word is intimately connected to spiritual practice. We find ourselves around her like a fire that comforts and moves. Many choose it as a redemption from pain and loneliness. Sometimes I recommend The artist’s way by Julia Camerona classic manual with exercises that can awaken even the most frozen creativity. Other times I invite them to cultivate the bonds created in those days. With last year’s group we often meet to write together” he adds.
To write then you need to make an appointment. Perhaps in a nineteenth-century villa in Cernigliano, where retreats dedicated to “self-writing” are held, or to Stromboli where Barberis holds erotic writing courses. «Stromboli has a unique magnetism. We, there, live together for seven days and write about eroticism. We go to the beach, we stand in a circle, everyone tries to listen to the needs of their own body. Every day we tackle at least one reading, one body practice and one or two writing practices. We talk with the same ease about sex and Proust in short. A book retreat means having time to write and someone who “forces” you to do it because doing it alone is often torture. However, I invite them to be very presumptuous, to pretend, for that week, to be real writers. And to read your stories on the last day I ask you to dress elegantly: it is a moment that should be celebrated» adds Barberis.
«What didn’t I expect? The fact that we change. I don’t know if it’s the topic or the place, but something happens. A girl, who had gone through very deep traumatic memories during the workshop, wrote to me to tell me that she had made love again, after a long time and that she liked it very much. I cried a little.”
8 book retreats for a weekend with a book
Hermit: https://eventsbykozmann.com, eremito.com
Villa Ca Diedo: villacadiedo.it
Average BCS: dreamsinitaly.it/ritiro-per-scriveri-matera
San Martino al Cimino: tusciartlab.com
CreaVity: creavita.org
Stromboli and Cerigliano: bellevillelascuola.com
Narrative counseling: treevolution.it
Newfoundland at the Castle: castellodisantasevera.it