Writing Retreat @CIS

About the event

Focused writing time is the most important element of a writing retreat, which can be enhanced by: preparation; mindfulness and movement activities; and goal setting, commitment, and accountability in a friendly, collective environment.

Lunch, snacks and coffee provided
Participation is limited to the first 16 registrants
Open to faculty and postdoctoral scholars in CHASS

Schedule

November 20, 2026
College Building North, 205

9 am – 12 pm – Morning Session
12 pm – 1 pm – Lunch
1 pm – 4 pm – Afternoon Session

How will the retreat be facilitated? Kim Yi Dionne (Political Science) will facilitate this retreat. She has developed the structure we will use based on nearly a decade of experience leading writing retreats.

What is a writing retreat? A writing retreat offers time and space for writers to make progress on their work. Academic writing can be particularly tough if you are working on something that requires deep focus and a writing retreat is a great way to work on these kinds of “hard” writing tasks. This is a retreat to “get writing done” — e.g., words on the page/screen, a chapter outlined, a paper edited, a grant proposal done and submitted. It’s not to “get work done” — e.g., catching up on email, grading, revising syllabi. Because we will likely enjoy each other’s company, we will also have time to share a meal and coffee breaks together, during which we can have friendly chats (and sometimes, fun conversations about our work!). During the time designated for writing, however, we discourage chatter and other potentially distracting noises. (If you are sensitive to noise, you may want to bring headphones as you will be in a space with multiple other people typing away.)

What will be the structure for this writing retreat? On-time arrival is important. We’ll begin at 9am sharp with introductions and sharing our writing intentions* and writing goals for the day. Saying goals out loud is really powerful/energizing. When ready to begin writing, we’ll listen to a guided meditation to help focus our minds. Then, we’ll use the pomodoro method for writing — with 35-minute writing sessions, alternating 5-10 minute breaks in between each writing session. We’ll break at noon for lunch. In the afternoon, one break will include a “Yoga Anywhere” exercise, which is 10 minutes of yoga that does not require any previous training nor even a yoga mat, just you in clothing comfortable enough to move in. We continue pomodoros until roughly 3:45pm, when we’ll check in with each other on the progress we made towards our writing goals.

* a writing intention can be either an input or an output, but it should be discrete. For example, an “input” oriented goal could be: I will focus 2 pomodoros on writing my intro section of Chapter 3 in my book project and 3 pomodoros writing the grant proposal I need to submit to get funds to travel to the archive to collect more data for the project. An “output” oriented goal would be: I want to have finished a “messy” draft of my book proposal by the end of the day // I want to have outlined all of the article and mind-mapped the theory section // etc.