EVENT RECAP
2018 Highlights
2018: Steaming Earth & Smooth Sailing
For our fifth IWR, we hit our stride. Adding a third tour through the steaming wonders of the geothermal Reykjanes Peninsula and running 44 workshops, we sailed through the week and welcomed a record five Iceland Writers Retreat Alumni Award winners and many others from 17 countries. With two Icelandic authors leading workshops, and readings or performances by eight additional Icelanders, we amped up our commitment to celebrate Iceland’s literary heritage.
FEATURED AUTHORS
2018 Speakers
Adania Shibli
Award winning author and teacher
Andri Snær Magnason
Icelandic Literary Prize winner
Craig Davidson
Scotiabank Giller Prize nominee
Gwendoline Riley
Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction nominee (2017)
Hallgrímur Helgason
Icelandic Literary Prize winner
Jón Gnarr
Former mayor of Reykjavík
Lauren Groff
National Book Award finalist
Lina Wolff
August Prize winner
Pamela Paul
The New York Times Book Review editor
Rory Maclean
Bestselling travel writer
Sigurbjörg Thrastardóttir
Nordic Council Literature Prize nominee
Sigurlín Bjarney Gísladóttir
Golden Circle tour guide
Susan Shreve
Guggenheim Award winner
Terry Fallis
Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour winner
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Best-selling author2018 Workshops
23:54 - 23:54
WORKSHOP ALMOST FULL. Stories can entrance, engage, even possess us. Every one of us has a story to tell; factual or fictional, cool documentary or heartfelt family journey, practical
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When you are writing a historical novel or a novel based in the not so distant past, it is always better to do research. Research will always boost the writer's confide
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THURS WORKSHOP FULL; SPACES AVAIL ON SATURDAY. Most writers are pretty much locked inside their own personality; they can only write about themselves
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In this workshop, we will look at examples of literary wickedness from Sula to the Wife of Bath, from Judge Holden to Humbert Humbert and John Milton’s Satan. We will attempt to parse the difference
23:54 - 23:54
In 1951, John Cage entered the anechoic chamber at Harvard University, expecting to hear silence. Instead, as he later wrote, "I heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the en
23:54 - 23:54
Three steps to writing funny stories:
- Acquire or otherwise procure a sense of humour.
- Use it when writing.
- Rinse and repeat.
23:54 - 23:54
SAT. WORKSHOP FULL; SPACES AVAIL ON FRIDAY. One of the best, but perhaps most underappreciated, ways to immerse readers in a piece of writing is by app
23:54 - 23:54
WORKSHOP ALMOST FULL. All our lives have fictional merit and purpose. Even if you think you may have lived a rather mundane existence, you have felt all those things your fellow human
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“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” So said Ernest Hemingway. Sometimes the pain and misery of writing comes from not knowing enough about the
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The finest travel books take the reader on parallel journeys, through space as well as into the writer him or herself. Such writing requires honesty, and nerve, but in return it opens doors and transf
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How do we choose the form and genre for our next book? Do we have to stick to a single genre throughout our carrier or should we have artistic freedom to explore the many forms of artistic expression?
23:54 - 23:54
THURS WORKSHOP FULL; SPACES AVAILABLE ON FRIDAY.How do you write about something you are passionate about, what angers you, what makes you afraid, worried. How do you write in the era
23:54 - 23:54
In the age of personal essays and social media, the boundaries between public and private life have blurred, loosened and nearly been erased. Yet not everyone is comfortable writing about him or herse
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What makes for a good book review? And what distinguishes a literary critic fro the many bloggers, reporters, tweeters and fans writing about books on the Internet? Has criticism changed in the digita
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How are these two activities related? Working from a range of extracts, we’ll think about the sounds of words and the beat and rhythm of sentences. We’ll discuss ho
23:54 - 23:54
Writing is rewriting. And far from being a chore, that rewriting is often the most rewarding part of the creative process. This session is a clinic for poorly paragraphs. I’ll bring some examples, b
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Paintings can be a unique source for exploring potential literary styles. We start with the camera-like human perspective, marked by its self-evidence and seeming natural experience of seeing and show
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In a text’s attempt to establish or uncover truth, secondary elements can be more important than major ones. Apart from forensic science, secondary elements form the basis of Sigmund Freud’s analy
23:54 - 23:54
THURS WORKSHOP FULL; SPACES AVAILABLE ON FRIDAY. Scenes are the building blocks of fiction and create a narrative of continuous small stories that may or may not be linear but establi
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What happens to our memory of an event when it becomes part of our imagination. How can we remember what our mother was we
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The hero in strict sense seems to belong to an epic, remote past, which is why this workshop will focus on the more complex, survival oriented and less sympathetic antihero. How can a writer work with
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WORKSHOP ALMOST FULL. Structure is the new black! The novel as a genre is plastic beyond imagination and in this workshop we study different ways to create a more alluring development