EVENT RECAP
2022 Highlights
2022: Sunshine & Reunions
After too many years of virtual connections, our 2022 event, with in-person workshops, lectures, and tours, was a warm homecoming for our writers and readers. Even the weather welcomed us back, offering days full of bright blue skies and sparkling sun. We launched the inaugural Iceland Readers Retreat and held our 8th annual Iceland Writers Retreat, meeting writers and readers from 18 countries, all of us thrilled to gather, connect, and to be together, again.
FEATURED AUTHORS
2022 Speakers
Aminatta Forna
Commonwealth Writers' Prize winner
Ármann Jakobsson
Speaker on every day tour.
Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
Bestselling author of "The Nest"
Dan Kois
Editor at Slate
David Chariandy
Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize winner
Elnathan John
Betty Trask Award Winner
Gretchen Rubin
New York Times bestselling author
Heather Harpham
Writer, teacher and theatre artist
Hera Björk
Pub night singer
Kristín Eiríksdóttir
Reader at pub night
Kristín Helga Gunnarsdóttir
Award-winning writer
Mazen Maarouf
Speaker at pub night
Patrick Gale
Sunday Times best-selling author
Will Ferguson
Giller Prize Winner
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Internationally bestselling author2022 Workshops
15:03 - 15:03
If ‘story’ might momentarily be defined as the chronological ordering of events in a narrative, ‘plot,’ on the other hand, might be defined as the order (sometimes thoroughly ‘non-linear’)
15:03 - 15:03
How do you go from one genre to another? I first clawed my way out of the literary slush pile twenty years ago, and though the technology of submissions has changed, the principles are the same. How d
15:03 - 15:03
Whether you write memoir, family history or have found someone whose story you’d like to tell, bringing real people to the page is about creating characters just as much as a novelist does. How do y
15:03 - 15:03
Travel writing and fiction share many of the same elements: a journey, revealing detail, the artful use of dialogue. Please bring a copy of a recent travel article or essay that you enjoyed (not your
15:03 - 15:03
Writing dialogue well and effectively is arguably the single hardest task facing the novelist and yet it’s consistently taken for granted. Patrick Gale will help you analyse both where the challenge
15:03 - 15:03
After the story itself there’s no more important decision a writer makes than who tells it. Thus, with each writing project a writer must choose a point of view and a perspective or perhaps several.
15:03 - 15:03
What are the connections between research and creative writing? How might ‘creative research’ be performed; when in the writing process ought it happen; and what
15:03 - 15:03
For many writers, writing sex scenes is a nightmare - something they feel is expected of them, but which they would much rather not do. Sex scenes are notoriously difficult. Will readers laugh inappro
15:03 - 15:03
This is a practical workshop with sincere questions and multiple answers.
What is the motive and purpose of a writer? Why does he write and for whom? What are his intentions and motives? We will ask
15:03 - 15:03
This is a workshop on family literature. We will discuss the novels that fly over age and gender and travel through time and space. What are their characteristics? How do we build bridges over the age
15:03 - 15:03
As in fiction, the most compelling characters in memoir are those who feel alive, nuanced and utterly unlike anyone but themselves. Specificity and close observation breathe life into our creations on
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How do you balance, for the reader, descriptions that contain extraordinary suffering or pain with a sense of forward momentum or narrative tension and vitality, even joy, in the prose? As we describe
15:03 - 15:03
This workshop attempts to get writers to look outside themselves, and often their feelings to write fiction and non-fiction that matters. It attempts to develop thoughts around taking risks, why readi
15:03 - 15:03
In a world increasingly sensitive to the political implications of words and literature and the implication of the politics of the writer, how do we think of political
15:03 - 15:03
You want to write a memoir but you’re not quite sure what shape your own story takes. You have a million ideas but don’t know what to focus on. You’ve gotten stuck halfway through your story and
15:03 - 15:03
How do essayists find the right balance? How do you keep an essay about weighty topics from grinding the reader into the dirt; how do you keep a light comic essay from floating off into nothingness? W
15:03 - 15:03
How does a writer make a deep impression in a few pages? What makes a piece of writing engaging, memorable, and persuasive? In this workshop, we will read and examine two essays to identify the writer
15:03 - 15:03
How does a writer make a deep impression in a few pages? What makes a piece of writing engaging, memorable, and persuasive? In this workshop, we will read and examine three essays to identify the writ
15:03 - 15:03
All stories have something at their core. It is the fuel that drives the narrative and influences everything from character development to the presentation of setting. It is however easy to lose sight
15:03 - 15:03
As a writer one is faced with a plethora of difficult choices, from the onset to the final edits. The most obvious are finding the viewpoint, the tense and how to construct the characters that will be
15:03 - 15:03
Scenes are the building blocks of plot. A strong scene will draw in your reader, make your characters spring to life, and propel your story. But what exactly is a scene? How do you write a compelling
15:03 - 15:03
Compelling fiction requires grabbing your reader on page one and never letting go. (This goes for all genres!) How do you accomplish this? (Hint: by starting your story immediately.) In this workshop,