During the ongoing academic year 2022–2023, we have experimented with virtual writing retreats at NordMedia Network. The purpose has been to organize half-day writing workshops for Nordic media scholars to offer them a couple of hours’ structured and undisrupted time for concentrated writing – something that we all academics are longing for but that is so difficult to arrange. We thus discovered here an opportunity not only to support researchers in a very concrete way but also bring Nordic academics together.

Many researchers have local writing groups where colleagues meet and write together – either working on a shared text or each working on the projects of their own. Indeed, during the pandemic, shared writing online has become more common, as people have sought possibilities to connect while working, despite the physical restrictions. As far as I have observed in my own community, it has also been more common for scholars to gather and go somewhere, preferably to the countryside, to dedicate time for moments with no phone calls, e-mails, Teams chat messages or students knocking on the door.

The experiences so far, after four accomplished virtual writing retreats, are positive.

Participants keep telling (see also the bulletin board below) that writing retreats are a good way of getting postponed work done. Some researchers have managed to write the article revision or peer review report that had been waiting on the desk for a long time. Others have taken advantage of other people’s presence; especially for young scholars, the retreats have been a channel for reaching out to senior scholars in the neighbouring countries.

 

We have learned that an optimal writing task for a retreat is a limited one. When working in 30- or 45-minutes slots, it is important to set goals that are accomplishable, and such goals need to be limited to be measurable. On the other hand, one participant recently observed that the writing retreat also helped her gain an insight into how dividing writing into small tasks is crucial in more general.

After all, the most challenging thing in writing retreats has been as simple as to find time for the sessions. Almost any time, some of the senior scholars who have signed up for the sessions need to make a last-minute cancellation, as the duties of a deputy chair of the faculty council or similar call them. But once you make it – we try to arrange the retreats on Fridays – it can be a very rewarding experience.

Photo: Thought Catalog, Unsplash