Fall Retreat is Now Open for Registration
This fall, October 24th-26th, Inkwell will be holding its eleventh retreat at Oriental Land, located at the end of Line 17. This is Inkwell’s biggest event each year, and I always love the energy of seeing Inkwell writers gather together in one place to learn more about writing. To see what retreat looks like, you can check out my detailed writeup of 2021’s retreat.
Oriental Land Park is a resort hotel with a lot of different attractions in it from an aircraft carrier to massive bamboo groves to towering wire sculptures. Here, writers can take time to develop their craft through Inkwell’s lectures and workshops as well as informal chats between participants.
All fall retreats are special in their own way but arguably none more so than this year, as Inkwell turns double-digits! To mark such a fabulous turn of events, it seems only appropriate that one of our favorite events of the year be extra-special! To do so, we have expanded and enhanced every aspect of this year’s retreat. Over twenty people will be in some form contributing to making this one of the best writing retreats ever, with fifteen workshops planned, and Oriental Land’s stalwart grub and housing remains resolutely unbudgingly solid.
Typically, the weekend kicks off with a relaxing Friday night where people arrive at their own convenience. This year’s Friday evening sees not only a proposed expansion to Marc Belisle’s classic Dungeons and Dragon’s creative writing one-shot from last year, but also multiple leaders who are prepared to lead us with amazing writing activities into the evening.
Saturday morning then brings the fountain of creation: the scavenger hunt! It never lets you down and always produces such astounding creativity, depth and laughter. This year, two new organizers are working on improvements and edits to this annual event, so it is guaranteed to be as brilliant as ever. From paper boat races, theme song edits, love letters to blades of grass, to inviting in hapless passers-by and tower-top word battles and sleuthing, I cannot wait for the highlights from this year’s partcipants.
After lunch, we begin the workshops, and Saturday is jammed full of epic action, from mending your writing with meditation, becoming a pro poet, to developing your creative flow, the line-up for full workshops will be amazing. Saturday evening features the return of the literary pub quiz with this year’s planned to be more of a mixture of literary knowledge and creative production. Always a hoot and a half, this year’s will have people wishing we’d make it a weekly occurrence, so watch out for that one!
On Sunday, following the success of last year’s break-out groups, we have decided to respond to the amazing support we’ve had from the call for speakers. There will be three sessions of three concurrent workshops, so you can choose the session that you feel most interested in and attend that one. With such delights as Poetry and Five Rhythms movement; comedy in writing; ramping up your writing output; how to write your memories truthfully and so much more. The only downside is that you cannot attend all of them.
I genuinely believe this year’s Fall Retreat will be one for the ages. With all the enhancements to our proven retreat framework and the amazing people voluntarily contributing, this retreat is looking to be a real success. Plus, the gathering of Inkwell once again to share the joys of silliness, seriousness, generosity, and community always occupies a special place in my year. Veterans and newcomers, please come and join the Inkwell family for a weekend for creativity and community.
Disclaimer: I earn nothing from Inkwell. I am not sponsored by photographers or superlatives, and zero words of this article were written, edited, suggested or in any way touched by any AI. Hopefully, you can tell.
Now back to the more practical bits:
We are renting a villa from Oriental Land Hotel. Each retreat participant will share a two-bed, one-bath room. For those seeking an individual, private room, this is possible for an additional 600 rmb.
Breakfast will be served buffet style while lunch and dinner will be in private dining rooms and served in the traditional, Chinese family style way, and vegetarian options are available. We use a lecture hall for major presentations and explore the park for writing opportunities.
Cancelation Policy: Deposits are non-refundable. Additional money given towards the retreat can be refunded at participant’s request at least two weeks before the start of the retreat. If participants want someone else to use their registration deposit, it is up to the participant to locate someone else and exchange money. Please notify the organizers so a suitable nametag can be prepared. If an act of God requires the hotel to close, then we will cancel the retreat and refund all money.
To join retreat, talk to the director of Inkwell, Ryan Thorpe. The total cost of retreat is 1700 rmb and deposit to reserve a spot is roughly half of the total fee, so 800 rmb. The rest of the fee will be due a week before retreat starts. That cost includes shared accommodation, six meals, park tickets, some Inkwell gear (current rumor is that Inkwell shirts might make a comeback), some alcohol, and the programming costs. The only extra costs to consider are getting there and getting back, which can be done by subway and any additional drinks and snacks you want to bring with you.
Ry’s Wechat
Feel free to message Ryan with any questions that you might have concerning retreat.
Here is a rough schedule of retreat along with all the abstracts of the presentations:
A collection of abstracts:
Saturday 25th Main Conference Room
Carl Watts: Beyond Biography: Hybrid Publishing models in print and Online
Carl Watts is an Associate Professor of English and Literature at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in Wuhan. In addition to scholarly articles and too many book reviews, he has published two poetry chapbooks, Reissue (Frog Hollow, 2016) and Originals (Anstruther, 2020); a short monograph, Oblique Identity (Frog Hollow, 2019); and a book of essays, I Just Wrote This Five Minutes Ago (Gordon Hill, 2022). He is currently working on a history of poetry criticism in Canada.
Jon Miller is a writer and founder of Osmanthus—a book publisher and related website concerned with the intersections of music, poetry, and technology.
We consider hybrid publishing models—that is, something that is recognizable as literary publishing but that stands outside the commonly used formats of magazine, poetry collections, novels/short stories, etc. Carl will lead a brainstorming session about possible alternatives, then outline some of the forms and formats that could be drawn upon in the context of nonfiction, as well as more recognizable formats for poetry and fiction. Jon will subsequently discuss the Osmanthus / Earshrub project and its ongoing evolution across print and digital formats. Finally, Carl will discuss another evolving project—Shane Neilson’s Gordon Hill / rebooted Porcupine’s Quill / Negative Review experiment—and close with a series of questions and discussion about the potentiality and pitfalls of such experimental approaches to publishing and distribution.
Morgan Gallup Zhu: Your Inner Dæmon: the science behind creative flow
Morgan Gallup holds a master’s degree in teaching writing from Johns Hopkins University and co-founded Nanjing Inkwell. She has published in The Nanjinger magazine, self-published a children’s book, and recently completed her first novel.
Tired of waiting for your muse to show up like a flaky friend who never texts back? This workshop connects ancient Greek ideas about creative “daemons” with modern neuroscience insights about how our brains actually work when we’re writing. You’ll learn about different mental states that support various phases of writing, from wild first drafts to careful editing. Leave with a new framework for understanding your writing process and some practical ideas to try in your own work.
David Tait: Moving towards a first poetry collection
David Tait’s poetry includes “Self-Portrait with The Happiness”, recipient of an Eric Gregory Award and shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection and Polari prizes. His subsequent collection “The AQI” was shortlisted for The Forte Prize. Work appears in The Poetry Foundation, The Poetry Review, The Rialto, 100 Queer Poems, The Guardian and Oxford Poetry. He tutors for The Poetry School and works in Shanghai as a teacher trainer.
Poets have poems hidden away everywhere. On old laptops, in dusty notebooks, on the backs of discarded napkins, even in the occasional literary journal. But how to shepherd them into a cohesive pamphlet or book? In this session we’ll consider how we can find connections between poems and consider how to help our work coalesce into a pamphlet or collection. Bring some poems with you that you are happy with.
Jane Wang: Meditation and Morning Pages
Jane is the chief editor of Trinergy Yoga Weekly, a mindful lifestyle online magazine. She is a meditation teacher, writer and speaker to inspire people to find a balance in life.
A healthy morning routine can help you generate quality content consistently. By combining meditation with morning pages you don’t need to wait for inspiration. It will flow freely as your mind becomes calm and quiet yet filled with abundant techniques.
In this session, you will learn some quick and practical meditation tips, a hands-on practice of morning pages after guided meditation and an efficient way to form an ongoing habit to get your creative soul dancing every day. Please be punctual out of respect for other participants, thanks!
Patricia Lain : Write What’s Missing: Using lack to connect with readers
Patricia first realised the power of words at the age of six, when she penned ”Ther Wos One Cher Left”. The scathing expose of the empty chair at their parents’ dinner party earned her a seat at the table, literally. She has yet to top her stunning debut, but lives in hope.
Writers are often told to focus on a character’s wants and needs. But what about the readers? A reader picks up a book, a poem, or an essay seeking something they lack: catharsis, justice, understanding, connection.
This workshop is a practical exploration of how the core lack driving your characters can quietly mirror the unspoken desires of your reader.
Presenters Sunday 26th Break-out Groups
After previous success with break-out groups, we are delighted to announce that this year’s retreat will have three concurrent break-out groups. You can choose which of three sessions you would most like to join three times on Sunday.
Group one (9:00-9:50am)
Thea Mo: Five Rhythms and Poetry: Movement as Muse
Thea Mo has organized student and teacher training seminars and has given presentations on the future of education in China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Mongolia. She has exhibited public installations in the U.S. and China. Her work has been reported by The Huffington Post and social commentaries have been recorded by The Sydney Morning Herald and NPR. She was previously the head of the East Asia region at Minerva University. She holds a Master of Arts in Education from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Philosophy from Duke University.
This workshop invites participants to explore the connection between embodied movement and poetic expression through the Five Rhythms practice—a dynamic movement meditation. Beginning with gentle gesture and intentional eye contact, we’ll journey together through five distinct energetic landscapes, each offering unique pathways into poetic writing.
Each rhythm becomes a doorway into language and imagery. Participants will craft poetry after experiencing each elemental movement. Through this embodied approach, writers discover new vocabularies of sensation, fresh metaphors born from physical experience, and poetry that pulses with authentic rhythm and energy.
No previous dance or poetry experience required—only willingness to move, breathe, and allow words to emerge from the wisdom of the body.
Lori Fazzino: The Courage to Reveal: Writing Your Authentic Self
Lori is an aspiring memoirist, trauma poet, and author of theUnjumbled Thoughtsnewsletter on Substack. She is a recovering academic turned primary school teacher living in China for nine years. Aside from academia, her published work can be seen on Huffington Post, Salon, and Ningbo Focus. Lori is Inkwell’s Head of Affiliates, a former organizer of Inkwell Ningbo, long-time attendee of Inkwell Retreat, and seeks to help people find healing through raw and authentic storytelling.
Writing about the messy, unfinished, and vulnerable parts of life is daunting, but it’s also what makes creative non-fiction so powerful. In this workshop, we will focus on writing with authenticity, embracing the imperfections of memory, and leaning into vulnerability to create stories that connect deeply with readers. Together we will explore moments of uncertainty, contradiction, or unresolved emotion and experiment with reimagining those memories to uncover hidden truths. Through guided exercises and meaningful discussion, we’ll tackle the challenges of writing honestly while protecting ourselves in the process. Writers will leave with a deeper understanding of how to reveal their authentic selves on the page.
Paula Willis: Generative Fiction Session – the MICE quotient
Devised by Orson Scott Card, the MICE quotient is a way of categorising different story threads, in order to ask the right questions to drive the story forward. Join us for a generative session that explains and explores the MICE quotient through different exercises.
Group 2 (10:00-10:50am)
Marc Belisle: Heroes and Villanelles:
Marc was born at a precociously young age in the Orion Spur of the Milky Way. He found an old typewriter shortly thereafter and has been nothing but a trouble ever since. He coordinates the Shanghai Inkwell Poetry Workshop. He wrote the play “Corruptible” which has been/will be produced in late November. He used to write heavily researched polemic screeds for the magazine Reverb Press. He aspires to getting gooder at the word writing stuff. Without further ado, please hide your pets, defenestrate your grandmothers, and lock your doors for Marc.
Do not go gentle into Modernism’s curse.
Rage, rage against the blandness of the verse.
A brief history of the villanelle as a poetic form, analyzing several famous examples, examining how it has survived free verse, discussing how you can write one, and thinking about how you can incorporate it into your repertoire.
Carolyn Johnson: Never a Blank Page
Carolyn Johnson has been teaching English in China for the past twenty-five years and writing for the past nineteen. She was nine when she decided that she was going to be a writer and, after seeing a Far Side comic, felt she needed a yellow legal pad and coffee. Her dad gave her a yellow-legal pad, but her mom said no to the coffee. At sixteen, she discovered The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and has written morning pages ever since. Then, at eighteen, working in a local newspaper office, she finally became addicted to coffee even though by then she had realized that neither coffee nor legal pads were required to be a writer and yet she remains addicted to both. Over the years, she’s had articles and poetry published in a smattering of completely unknown magazines and books. Fortunately, writing is a passion, not a sole source of income.
No matter what genre you write, writing daily is important to keeping your writer mojo intact. Staring at a blank page is something most of us just don’t have time for so if you’ve ever had a writer’s block moment, this workshop is for you. AI is great for idea generation, but it’s just way too easy to get sucked into the deep dark rabbit hole of AI and not get any writing done, which is why we’re going to try out some analog methods for getting the brain juice flowing that are fully adaptable for any genre. So flex those fingers and get ready to whip up some story fodder.
David Horton: I’m Ready to Submit
The presenter is the editor of an award winning poetry zine and has worked in various capacities on several (he thinks eight) literary journals. He has also been submitting work to journals for over 30 years. Bio: David Harrison Horton is a Beijing-based writer, artist, editor and curator. He is author of Necessary (Downingfield, 2025) and Maze Poems (Arteidolia, 2022). His latest chap, Model Answer, was released by CCCP Chapbooks/subpress in 2024. His work has recently appeared in The Belfast Review, Roi Fainéant, Modern Literature and Yolk, among others. He edits the poetry zine SAGINAW.davidharrisonhorton.com
This will be a nuts and bolts presentation designed for writers who are at the beginning or relatively early stages of their submitting journey. We will look at where to look for English language calls for submissions, look at and decipher a few submission guidelines, some basic dos and don’ts for cover letters, how submission cycles often work at literary journals, the different tiers of rejections, and acceptance. There will be time for discussion and Q&As.
Group three (1:00-1:50pm)
Henrik Sætre: Writing Discipline: How to publish 1.5 million words in two years.
Henrik is a full-time indie author with six (soon to be nine) fantasy books under his belt, and over 11.5 million KENP reads. Find out more atwww.henriksaetre.com
From writing 250 words a day to publishing 1.5M words in two years. Full-time fantasy author Henrik Saetre shares the mindset and method behind scaling to 2–5k words per day and writing fast without sacrificing quality. If you’ve ever wanted to write faster and publish more, this is the talk for you.
Aydan Mirzayeva: If I fall in a Lonely forest, Do I make a sound?
Aydan Mirzayeva is a contemporary artist and educator from Azerbaijan, whose work explores trees and forests as living archives of memory and ecology. She is a participant of international exhibitions and festivals and joined Inkwell in 2024.
This workshop invites participants to write from the perspective of a tree, transforming memories and imagination into first-person narratives. Each person will choose a tree that holds personal meaning — from childhood, a neighborhood, or even an imagined one — and give it voice. Conceived as a memorial for trees, the activity honors the ways they witness, carry, and preserve stories across time.
The workshop builds on my long-term art project on trees, which began in Azerbaijan through the ARTIM Project at YARAT Contemporary Art Space and continued in Ukraine during the CEC ArtsLink Residency, developing The Monologue of the Tree (2018). In Ukraine, I explored the cultural and ecological nominations of trees — how they are named, celebrated, and remembered — and their role within local ecosystems.
A central thread of this project is my reworking of the philosophical question, “If a tree falls in a lonely forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” I transformed it into: “If I fall in a lonely forest, do I make a sound?” — shifting it toward the human voice and highlighting our deep entanglement with trees and the more-than-human world.
Lucas Gabriel: Comedy writing
Lucas is a human being. Humans are living organisms that inhabit a round rock (although, amongst themselves, this is a highly debatable subject) that revolves around a smaller-than-average star. Humans, however, mostly agree that size doesn’t matter. Currently, he is engaged in efforts towards human reproduction, specifically, his own. His efforts, however, have yet to yield results.
This is a 50 min. presentation on “Comedy Writing”. It is based on the Book “The Comic’s toolbox” by John Vorhaus. John is an accomplished writer of comedy and a lecturer on comedy and writing. (My personal favorite work of his is the famous sitcom: Married with Children, that featured many funny one-liners within the dialogue)
Peggy: _Honey, I’m home! Did you miss me?
Al: _With every bullet so far.
Taking direct content from his book and master class, we will work together in short exercises to apply comedy tools such as: the rule of 9, comic perspective, comic character, exaggeration, defeat of expectation and more if time allows.