When and where do you write best?

I’m choosing dates for my retreats in 2026. This will be the seventh year for Ridge Writing Retreats! So far, I’ve facilitated about 70 retreat days online and in person in Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Tampere and Säynätsalo, and a few hundred hours of Write on Wednesdays. I write well at all our venues, and that isContinue reading “When and where do you write best?”

Reclaim your brain

Did you start your own cyber cleanse yet? A few months ago, I almost quit Google and Meta. Not completely, because some groups I can’t live without still use GoogleDrive folders to cowrite or WhatsApp to get organized. Everything I run and write myself is now elsewhere, but it’s still hard to get bigger groupsContinue reading “Reclaim your brain”

Writing, fast and slow

On Wednesdays since the beginning of January, I’ve been doing an exercise from a lovely little book, Creative Writing for Researchers. Taking five months to get through a 160-page book might seem extraordinarily slow. Some of the twenty-odd exercises took twenty minutes. Others took a lot longer. Sometimes I honed a haiku, other times IContinue reading “Writing, fast and slow”

Happy new year, happy new writing!

Happy new year and happy new writing! 2025 is full of opportunities to write together and I hope you can join me for as many as possible. We are returning to some of our favourite venues and trying a new format. Fifth birthday party: write up to teatime Ridge Writing Retreats turned five last autumnContinue reading “Happy new year, happy new writing!”

Starting a social writing group?

Are you based in Finland and want to set up or improve your own social writing group? Do you want to meet others who help writers put writing first, together? Your group could be a regular hour a week on Zoom, or a one-off writing retreat in person. You might invite people on your corridor,Continue reading “Starting a social writing group?”

Writing for Research and Academic Practice with the WRAP Network

What do you want from a place to write? I want quiet, a good desk, an armchair to read in, lots of natural light, space to move around, somewhere nice and green to go for a walk and listen to the birds. And a comfortable bed and lots of lovely veggie food to eat inContinue reading “Writing for Research and Academic Practice with the WRAP Network”

Write with us throughout 2024

How far in advance do you block out writing time? I’ve just got my own writing retreat dates sorted for the rest of the year. There might be more to come, but now we know that every couple of months, we have a couple of days to write together in person. Your fellow writers haveContinue reading “Write with us throughout 2024”

Women writing socially in academia: the lineage of an idea

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 toContinue reading “Women writing socially in academia: the lineage of an idea”

All I want for Christmas is time to write

The holidays are coming closer and so are deadlines, but if all you want for Christmas is writing time, we have new dates and a new venue for the new year. Looking forward to writing with you in 2024! Writing in a Winter Wonderland, Unity Tampere 8&9.2.2024 Unity is a brand-new venue for us, inContinue reading “All I want for Christmas is time to write”

When should you write in a language you learned later in life?

When should you write in a language you learned later in life? Some people never do. They are monolingual and they only write in the one language they learned to speak and listen and read and write in as a child. That is true of fewer people than you might think. Some people always do.Continue reading “When should you write in a language you learned later in life?”