You might not notice when you started writing something. An idea can take years to develop, and years more to come to fruition. But looking back can be revealing and help you look forward. If you’ve never tried this, I absolutely recommend it. Inspired by Margy Thomas and Helen Sword in #Acwrimoments8 I decided to trace the lineage of the idea for our book on social writing. It goes back almost a decade…
September 1998 – I start writing my PhD, living in a shared house with five other humanists (all but one are women). Some of us go to the brand-new British Library to write. We meet for lunch, plan what we’ll have for dinner at home, and talk about our writing. I didn’t know this had a name…
September 2015 – at international translation day in Helsinki, my colleague Virve Juhola talks about Nordic Editors and Translators. I join NEaT straight away.
October 2017 – METM17 – my first METM, or Mediterranean Editors and Translators Meeting, in Brescia. Professor Rowena Murray gives a keynote. I can see the potential in my work for social writing.
April 2019 – I train to facilitate structured writing retreats with Rowena Murray in Scotland and write that retreating is engaging when you put writing first, together.
November 2019 – Ridge Writing Retreats has its first day retreat. We write in the former city library designed by Wivi Lönn, the first woman architect with her own office in Finland. I’ll go on to write more about her later…
March 2020 – we move all our retreats online. Writing together virtually becomes increasingly important when we can’t meet physically.
June 2020 – retreat facilitators start meeting together online. These zooms see us through the Covid-19 restrictions and we realise we have more to share with others.
July 2020 – with Wendy Baldwin and Joana Pais Zozimo, we plan a book proposal to Palgrave Studies in Gender and Higher Education.
November 2021 – The book is born. Our proposal is peer reviewed and accepted by the end of the year.
2022 – we write the book! A dozen authors contribute from all over the world, mostly in Europe but also in New Zealand, Canada and Australia.
November 2023 – I start writing a chapter for another book about social writing, edited by a member of our writing retreat facilitators group.
December 2023 – we finalize and submit the proofs of our book to Palgrave.
January 2024 – the book is published: Women Writing Socially in Academia: Dispatches from Writing Rooms
February 2024 – we plan the launch.
March 2024 – we present the book at the launch meeting of the WRAP network for social writing, research and academic practice. Join us at the summit on 18 March! Find out more about WRAP and register for the summit here.
Ridge Writing Retreats 
Congrats on your book!
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Thank you Khaya!
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