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Why attend a travel writing retreat?
Retreats do several things very well. First, they give us permission to be slow. Instead of stealing an hour between jobs and appointments, we are allotted tidy blocks of time to try, sometimes fail, and try again. That’s when the odd, stubborn, creative sentences arrive. The ones we couldn’t have written if we were rushed. Second, being in a place that asks us to look, really look, sharpens our senses. We notice the small shop windows with jars of salted lemons and crocheted blue booties, the fishermen mending their nets in conversation with their sons, the women donning aprons and straw hats as they hang out washing in the bright…
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Easter 2026 São Brás – Torch Flower Festival
The Resurrection Procession in the eastern Algarve town of São Brás de Alportel is a deeply felt, singular expression of local faith and community connection. Yesterday, Sunday 5th April 2026, we visited the vivid, communal, and welcoming celebration of renewal that invites everyone to share in São Brás’s traditions. The procession route usually winds from the Igreja Matriz through the historic centre, pausing at small chapels and squares. Each Easter Sunday the town transforms, residents carpet the streets with intricate mats of purple, white, orange flowers and greenery. Locals don their best clothes, and men from associations, the council and community groups lift flower torches high as a procession moves…
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Join us in Portugal on 18-21 May 2026 for our Travel Writing Retreat
For me, travel writing is about connection and community. It is about exploring myself as much as it is discovering new and challenging places. Stephen and I, are inviting you to a journey. This retreat is not just about improving writing skills. It is also about discovering why travel writing matters. We draw inspiration partly from 19th century English art critic John Ruskin, for whom beauty was key. Ruskin taught drawing to working men and he wanted to go beyond technique. His fundamental aim, he said, was to develop in his students a deeper appreciation of beauty. Writing works in much the same way. To describe a place well, a…
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4 day Travel writing retreat 18-21 May 2026
My neighbour Stephen and I are both writers. During my last writing workshop in 2025, we discussed the possibility of a shared Travel Writing Retreat and created an event page on Facebook.We both live on Monte Agudo, near Tavira, in the Eastern Algarve. I live at Casa Alexandra and Stephen at Casa Anatôlio. Both venues will be used for workshop sessions during the retreat.We created the following text: Could this work as a spring treat – a four day travel writing course in the sunny Algarve? This course aims to give you the tools and the mindset to bring your ideas to life. There can be so much richness in…
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Celebrating Connection at the Open Mic Night
Last month, towards the end of an autumn day, some of the artistic community in the Eastern Algarve, came together to transcend borders, languages, and backgrounds. The Open Mic Night, held on November 20th, was a celebration of neighbours and an opportunity for us to weave our individual stories. We paid homage to Tela Leão who brought us together under the umbrella of the Álvaro de Campos birthday party celebration. (FAAC) Jay Artale a local artist and I created a running order for the participants who had let us know they wanted to perform. We tried to accommodate everyone who arrived with songs and poetry on the night. This meant…
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Next Writing Workshop Thursday 4 September 10:00am – Join us
Portuguese Somersault, published in 1934, is a travel story in the vagabond style by two eccentric Brits, Jan and Cora Gordon. I have been thinking about the September workshop and the stories we write, and this book came to mind. The book sits in the Portugal section of a bookshelf in my home. It is old with a fading red cover and bound. I must have picked it up at a car boot sale about 20 years ago. The married couple wrote an intriguing preface that conveys their voice. They were both artists and musicians. I have photographed the preface to illustrate several considerations we may choose to incorporate into our…
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Developing dialogue and character
Join me for the fourth of six writing workshops. This session focuses on developing dialogue and character. Are you passionate about storytelling or memoir and eager to learn and improve your craft? We will consider ways to create compelling dialogue to reveal inner worlds. Dialogue is valuable in character development because it helps us identify mood, inner conflict, and more. In this session, we’ll explore: How to write dialogue that feels natural. Introduce body language and setting to add depth. Uncover the subtext of what characters are expressing beyond their words. Build atmosphere and mood through dialogue and description. Explore distinctive voices and emotional intensity to deepen the layers of…
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Writing workshop Friday 16 May – Memoir and Ancestral stories
The third Discovery Writing Workshop will be at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, 16 May 2025, at my home on a hill near Santo Estêvão, Tavira. In the first workshop, we examined origin stories and worked on prompts. We also learned about each other’s writing practices and built some trust. The second workshop considered Magical Realism, Fantasy, and Fabulism. In this week’s genre, we will consider how memoir can take many forms and reflect ancestral connections and cultural differences. Through poems, stories, cultural narratives and research, we will uncover how memories and moments in time may bridge different worlds of experience. A memoir is not about being fair to everyone and…
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Earth Day – Tuesday 22 April 2025
Earth Day.org, the global organiser of Earth Day, observed annually on 22 April, has set the theme for 2025 as – Our Power, Our Planet™. 2025 marks the 55th anniversary of EARTH DAY. To honour this milestone, they have invited one billion supporters in 192 countries to unite behind renewable energy to triple the global generation of clean electricity by 2030. To mark Earth Day, here are a couple of examples of local actions. There are many more that could be acknowledged, so please mention what you are doing or any you know about in the comments. We have 30 solar panels and have been generating solar energy on a…
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Writing workshops and get together sessions for writers in the Algarve
Hello writers and dabblers, I will facilitate some Discovery Writing Workshops this spring and summer at my home on a hill near Santo Estêvão, East Algarve, Tavira. We have lots of space for inspiration. The first session will be Friday, 18 April 2025, at 2:30pm. Writing with a group can often spur writers to accomplish more than when writing alone. Why I write. From seven to twenty-eight, I drank the cool aid of a cult. My family are still believers. When I left, my life was rudderless without family connections, as shunning was what they were instructed to do. I had to find my own community. As a child, education wasn’t encouraged…
