Retreat to Vermont - by Matthew Greene

Describe the perfect writing retreat, real or imagined.

"Perfect" is such a tricky word. And I happen to have the unenviable habit of letting the "perfect" be the enemy of the "good." So, of course, when I read this prompt, I started imagining exotic getaways with ideal creative circumstances. A trip on the Orient Express, perhaps. Or a private island with no cell reception and ample snacks.

But then I remembered last weekend.

As it happens, I've just gotten back from a little DIY writer's retreat I've taken myself on more than once. With a couple deadlines looming, it seemed as good a time as any to escape to beautiful Brattleboro, Vermont.

It may not be the most exciting locale, and the bragging rights of arranging the retreat myself are basically nil. But I think I've perfected the formula for a thoroughly productive creative reset just a few hours outside New York City. It brings together three elements I find essential for a beleaguered writer like myself: a train ride, a small town, and great place to stay.

THE TRAIN:

Brattleboro is situated on the Amtrak Vermonter line, about six hours from New York. This gives me ample time to read, to journal, and to get to work as the gorgeous scenery passes me by. I sit on the left hand side of the train on the way up and the right on the return to catch the waterfront views. Autumn leaves enhance the experience even more, but I've taken the trip at various times of the year and always enjoyed myself. The trip to Brattleboro is a perfect chance to sip a coffee and strategize for the retreat, and the train back is timed just right for a celebratory prosecco to toast to all you're sure to accomplish.

THE TOWN:

If you're looking for a bucolic little town where lumberjacks and hippies feel equally welcome, look no further. I won't pretend I'm an expert on a place I've only passed through a few times, but I can vouch for the charming Main Street within walking distance from the train station, lined with cafes, bars, and eateries where you can post up with a laptop or notebook and write to your heart's content. There's also a public library to wile away the creative hours, a multitude of outdoor spaces if the weather is nice, and a kick-ass co-op to stock up on snacks. Special shoutout to "The Bomb" sandwich at Echo and the Maple Latte at Mocha Joe's.

THE HOTEL:

And my favorite part of this little getaway...the Latchis Hotel! Within spitting distance of the train (gross), this historic hotel features original fixtures and furniture, with a record player in every room and a vinyl lending library full of music to get the creative juices flowing. Even better, the hotel is built beside the Latchis Theatre, an old-fashioned movie palace still in operation. Nothing inspires me more than a good movie, and there's nothing quite like catching a flick in the beautifully preserved main auditorium. The Latchis Hotel and Theatre are both run by a nonprofit organization devoted to maintaining the building's unique history and—I like to think—inspiring writers like us.

This post is starting to sound like a travel brochure, but I promise I'm writing from the heart. Every time I head up to Brattleboro, I find myself inspired by the scenery, the history, and the fascinating folks I meet along the way. Last weekend I finished an outline of one project, polished off several pages of another, and got inspired with a few fresh new ideas. 

Needless to say, I think I earned the prosecco on the way home. And I hope you do too!

'My Heart at Evening': Love at First Sight by Poppy Gee

 My mum used to mark a J in the inside cover of library books with a soft pencil, to show that my dad had already read them. Dru Ann Love's record of what she reads evolved into an award-winning, guest-infested daily blog. Where do you sit when it comes to reading notes? Do you keep a record, write reviews, make annotations in the margins . . .?

I like writing reviews of books and I like posting them on Instagram, with a beautiful photo of the book. As I hit ‘post’, it feels like I’m throwing a bouquet of freshly picked flowers into the air, one which the book’s author will catch with joy.

A few years ago, I stopped saying ‘review’ and started saying ‘recommendation’. I’m not analysing, I’m simply saying, I found a book you might like. I don’t write negative reviews. That’s not my job. I think it’s easy to write negative stuff, it’s harder to explain why the work resonates with you, where it sits in the literary canon, and what is shows us about the human condition, or the world we live in. I often research the subgenre if it’s unfamiliar to me. It helps me understand the author’s intent, and achievement.

Below is a book rec I wrote recently. As I say in my piece, it was love at first sight… everything I learned about the book intrigued and seduced me. And when I finally read it, I was utterly enamoured. The writing is elegant, the author poetically describes the lavish miserable decadence of the Tasmanian wilderness, and challenges long held assumptions about Tasmanian history and people. At it’s core is a dark mystery, a cold case that will never be resolved.

From my Instagram, 4 October 2025:

Book rec: Very occasionally you find yourself falling in love with a book that you haven’t read. Its a rare phenomenon but it happens. Right now I’m in the delightful state of love at first sight for My Heart At Evening by Konrad Muller.

The romance began when I saw on Instagram the author doing events at Tasmanian bookshops. I was intrigued. A debut novel, set in Tasmania, with that exquisitely enchanting title…

And then I discovered that the novel is about Henry Hellyer, an architect who took his own life in 1832 at Highfield House, Stanley. That hooked me because earlier this year I visited Highfield house. In an upstairs bedroom, overlooking the ocean, I read Henry’s suicide note and the witness statements provided after his death. The statements were lavishly and strangely worded and read like the people had colluded. There were inconsistent details in other reports. I asked the house manager if she thought he took his own life and, to my surprise, she admitted that she personally didn’t believe he did. It seemed perhaps Henry Hellyer’s mysterious death was Tasmania’s first documented anti-gay crime. I was intrigued. This book is about that man.

I bought my copy at Petrachs in Launceston yesterday. It’s one of the most divinely produced books I’ve ever held. The cover is thick, and the spine feels seamless. Inside the cover is indigo to match the blue gentian flower on the cover. The blurb is short: two enigmatic, poetic observations.

Those blurbs! To die for! ‘A glossy black cockatoo of a book…’

Everything about this book feels otherworldly. Even the publisher sounds intriguing, like a character in a curious old novel:

‘Based in Lutruwita/Tasmania, Evercreech Editions publishes the boldest, strangest, and most necessary voices we can find. We value deep thought and burning intensity; work that is formally striking, emotionally resonant, and politically alive. Emerging writers, overlooked classics, and essential works in translation—if it is stunning and urgent we want to print it.’

It was so satisfying I returned to Petrachs this morning to buy a second copy for my sister.

Five stars (count them), by Catriona

My mum used to mark a J in the inside cover of library books with a soft pencil, to show that my dad had already read them. Dru Ann Love's record of what she reads evolved into an award-winning, guest-infested daily blog. Where do you sit when it comes to reading notes? Do you keep a record, write reviews, make annotations in the margins . . .?

Dru's Book Musings, by the way. 

I keep a record of what I read, here on my blog. I have no memory of why I started except that it was a round-up of my Chrtistmas and New Year holiday reading from 2019-2020 and maybe I didn't want to let go of curling up on a couch with a stack of books and turn, instead, to face the coming year. Which, as I say, was 2020. So here's what I read that Christmas:

A NEARLY PERFECT CHRISTMAS, Nina Stibbe

OPEN THE CAGE, MURPHY, Paul O'Grady

MY NAME IS WHY, Lemn Sissay

THE LADY IN THE LAKE, Laura Lippman

THE DUTCH HOUSE, Ann Patchett

CHRISTMAS ON CORONATION STREET, Maggie O'Sullivan

THE SALT PATH, Raynor Winn

THE INSTITUTE, Stephen King

THE STONE CIRCLE, Elly Griffiths

THE DARK ANGEL, Elly Griffiths

That's pretty typical Yuletide pile: a couple I'd managed to save - Stephen King and Elly Griffiths, a couple of seasonal treats, a celebrity biography - Paul O'Grady, A then adored and now disgraced memoirist ...

And I've been doing it for nearly six years (doesn't feel like that, given the wibble-wobble of pandemic time). One benefit is that it keeps me checking in on my website and stops me forgetting to post events. Like this one!

more info (not much) here

Also, it means I've always got a photo handy for Friday Reads on Facebook and Bluesky. It's amazing how many books look great against my tomato-red kitchen bunkers, including the Library of Congress's groundbreaking crime classic THE CONJURE-MAN DIES, by Rudolph Fisher (highly recommend (when the Library of Congress is open for business again)):

Order links here

But there are limits, and CRIME INK: ICONIC, John Copenhaver and Salem West's dazzling anthology of short stories inspired by Queer icons was an assault on the eyeballs:

Order links here

I know I should probably migrate to GoodReads with all this, or double it up so I've got stuff on GoodReads too, but . . . ( three dots are not an argument, I know.)

And since I've started beating myself up, why don't I write reviews? I love getting reviews (not that I read them) because all hail the algorithm, right? So I should definitely write some. Guess what? 

. . . 

I do write jacket blurbs and I will boost like Billy-oh when a friend has a new book out. A couple of recents are Cindy Brown's stellar, Portland-set mystery ECHOES OF THE LOST. I wrote: a rattling good page-turner, for a start, but it's also an absorbing character study and a brilliant depiction of a setting and community not often - if ever - found in crime fiction. Unflinching and compassionate, Cindy Brown brings Portland's unhoused citizens sizzling onto the page, showing both their individual humanity and the rich structure of their society. I was as charmed by the background to this excellent novel as I was by the twists and zings of the story itself.

pre-order links here

And for a complete change, There's Amanda Block's wonderful adventure story, THE HAUNTING OF HERO'S BAY. I wrote: The kindly spirit of Daphne du Maurier is definitely watching over this terrific West Country novel: there are smugglers and shipwrecks, secrets and legends, clues hidden in artworks - and in hidey holes. Plus a quirky village full of irresistible characters, not one but two halting and tremulous love stories, and a protagonist whose plight and pluck are equally compelling. The Haunting of Hero's Bay was pretty much the perfect read. I loved it.

Pre-order links here

Thank God for the unwritten rule that if you don't write a blurb, it's because you "didn't get to it in time". I love telling people a fabulous book is fabulous, but I'd hate to find myself having to write things like "Fans will be delighted" or "If you loved Gone Girl, you'll like this." 

As to the other half of this question - making marks in books? I make notes in my own first editions, to cut down passages for reading out at the launch party (see above, Dec 4, Davis, CA) but that's it. I use a bookmark, I don't crack the spine if I can help it (but reading a heavy hardback one-handed in a hot bath, with a glass in the other, sometimes causes a bit of trauma), and I have used the endpapers for emergency story ideas, but overall my library will be in pretty good shape when my coil's been shuffled off and my house is being cleared. 

Although, as one of my nephews once said - about the number of signed books I've got: "It's going to take ages to check these when you're dead, Auntie Catriona. We're not going to be able to just hoy them into a skip." (Lob them into a dumpster) He doesn't foresee being laid low by grief, does he?

Cx

  

Keeping Track by Eric beetner

 My mum used to mark a J in the inside cover of library books with a soft pencil, to show that my dad had already read them. Dru Ann Love's record of what she reads evolved into an award-winning, guest-infested daily blog. Where do you sit when it comes to reading notes? Do you keep a record, write reviews, make annotations in the margins . . .?

I have, in the past, kept a running record of books I read that year. I don't know why I stopped, because it is actually a very helpful tool to have around, especially when awards nomination season rolls around. I need to get back to that.

I don't feel the need to write down what I read for others, but I also value a good Amazon review since I know it impacts how books get seen on that platform. Also, mostly because I read small, indie press books that need the attention. I certainly only will write a positive review. If a book wasn't for me, then best to say nothing since it is proven time and time again that my tastes run far away from the mainstream. Writing enthusiastically about books I truly enjoyed is a pleasure and I think a valuable part of the reading community. If you want to have discussions about books, want to share the things you love, then you should absolutely be out there reviewing, hyping, praising and otherwise shouting from the rooftops about a good book.

For example, I recently finished What About The Bodies by Ken Jaworowski and it was easily in my top 3 of the year. I constantly struggle with shelf space in my office and this one immediately made the shelf, whereas I am getting close to another book purge and I've got my eye on a few who might not make the cut. But What About The Bodies is shelf-worthy. 

As for any Ex Libris on my bookshelves – no. I don't make a big habit out of lending my books out so I don't need to brand them. I do keep a stack of doubles in my closet. If I'm out at a Goodwill or used bookstore and spot a book I have read and loved, I will snap it up and add it to the pile of books I like to have at the ready in case anyone I know needs a book recommendation. Often if we have guests over I'll offer up a book as a parting gift, and if I pull it from this pile I know it's a banger. Many, if not most, of my signed books are personalized to me so that will stand in for any sort of "property of..." or "From the library of..."

As to notes in the margins, well, I'm not a psychopath so, no, I don't write in my books. I'm the type of reader who prefers not to crack a spine if I don't need to. I don't dog-ear pages or curl paperback covers in my fist while reading. I grew up civilized. I might like a line or a particular turn-of-phrase, but it would never cross my mind to underline it or, I shudder to even type it, get out a highlighter. 

And it has nothing to do with the resale value of a book. I just think the book is presented as it was written. It gains nothing by me adding to the page. 

Even when I kept lists, it happened far away from the actual book. But this will jump-start me into making lists again. It's not much to keep a file on my computer and add to it when I finish a book. I'm amazed at how many books fall right out of my head the minute I close the cover. I guess that's not a ringing endorsement of the books, but life moves on, I go right into reading something new, there are so many new distractions for us these days. 

To summarize:

I endorse reading lists, writing reviews, posting about books you like on social media.

I abhor marking up books with your own thoughts or notes. It's the one thing that separates us from the animals.

In The Margins

In the Margins: Notes on the Art of Active Reading

My mum used to mark a J in the inside cover of library books with a soft pencil, to show that my dad had already read them. Dru Ann Love’s record of what she reads evolved into an award-winning, guest-infested daily blog. Where do you sit when it comes to reading notes? Do you keep a record, write reviews, make annotations in the margins . . .?

 

I’ve abandoned the idea of keeping a list of the books I’ve read. But I do leave traces —marks, asterisks, double-underlines in the margins. I suppose I fall into the “active reader” camp, which for me involves the hand, the eye, and a slowed-down mind.

    In school, I used to underline passages in literature not just to remember them, but to understand how they worked. It was like poking around inside a clock. I’d mark rhetorical structures — anaphora, antithesis, parallelism — and try to see how an author used them to build rhythm or turn an argument. Charles Dickens was a favorite for this. No one piles on a clause quite like Dickens.

    Active reading, to me, is a bit like what medieval monks did with marginalia: an ongoing conversation with the text. It’s different from the rainbow flood of highlighting I saw in high school or at university, which felt more like panic-prepping for an exam than engaging with a writer. When you mark deliberately — with pencil, pen, or even typed notes — you’re practicing discernment. You’re tuning your ear to cadence, your eye to structure, and your mind to nuance.

    These days, many readers do their marking digitally — and I get it. Kindle lets you highlight passages, even shows you what other people have highlighted. (A sort of group annotation, or maybe a literary popularity contest?) But it can feel like walking into a museum and seeing stickers next to the paintings: “Everyone liked this brushstroke.” Helpful, sure. But also, weirdly disembodied. A Kindle highlight disappears into the cloud; a pencil mark on the page feels like a footprint. Your footprint.

    Plus, have you ever tried flipping back through a Kindle to find that one quote you meant to remember? It’s like trying to hitchhike through fog.

    When I was studying Latin, I learned to scan a sentence and find the verb first. Everything radiated from that one word. I started noticing how authors arranged their ideas — where they placed the temporal phrase, how subject and object shifted around the sentence. Romance languages taught me that English’s S-V-O structure wasn’t a universal. That opened up a whole new layer of pattern recognition in my reading life.

    One trick I still use: I’ll take a sentence I love and write it out by hand. Or type it. Something about the tactile act lets you feel the sentence differently — its rhythm, balance, weight. Try it with Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald and you’ll know what I mean. Faulkner gallops, Hemingway jabs, Fitzgerald sways.

    And then there’s James Baldwin. Baldwin doesn’t just write — he preaches, in the most literary and lyrical sense. You can hear his father’s pulpit in his cadence, but also poetry, jazz, and fire. Here’s a sentence from The Fire Next Time:

    “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

    That line stopped me the first time I read it. It’s deceptively simple — but look closer:

• There’s assonance in live without / live within — a mirrored, almost incantatory rhythm.
• The parallel structure of we fear we cannot... and we know we cannot... tightens the line and heightens contrast — a classic rhetorical move.
• And then the antithesis of without vs within — it’s not just poetic, it’s philosophical. Baldwin turns a sentence into a paradox you feel in your chest.

    Copying out that line by hand taught me something about restraint and repetition — how Baldwin’s power often comes from what’s left unsaid. His sentences don’t shout. They resonate.

    So while I may not jot a J in the front cover of a library book like some wise mothers do (a system I secretly admire), I do leave behind a field of light pencil lines — artifacts of a mind at work, or maybe just at play.

    For me, that’s the joy of reading: not just absorbing the story, but developing a relationship with language itself.

Difficult to write, impossible to read - by Harini Nagendra

Handwritten or typed? Some writers, even today, will hand write a first draft. Some have 3rd grade penmanship from the atrophy our handwriting has suffered. Do you still handwrite any part of your writing process or are you all type, all the time? 

I'll let you in on a little secret - I am, and always have been, short on patience. A recipe like biriyani, that calls for slow roasting of thinly sliced onions for twenty minutes? Not for me. Caramel custard? Again no... it takes patience to get the caramel just right, and I don't have any.

Is it any wonder that I never developed the art of copperplate handwriting as a child? When I was in kindergarten, we were given ruled notebooks with rows of colored lines in which we were supposed to practice cursive writing. I never got the hang of it - except for one assignment, when I was about 5 years old, and painstakingly wrote out each three letter word (think bat, cat, rat) in lightest pencil, and went over it again with a darker pencil once I was satisfied. That was when we had a new teacher whom I absolutely adored - she even came home, to my birthday party, and I was so thrilled. But alas - she only came home to tell my parents she was leaving - she'd been teaching for a few weeks, but then became engaged, and left to get married. I was so disappointed - but there usually is a silver lining, and mine was that once my teacher left, I didn't need to sweat over my handwriting exercises ever again. I reverted to my usual untidy scrawl.

I never learnt how to type. I tried teaching myself to use all fingers on both hands, using typing software (in the early days of gamification, during the early '90s) but it never 'took'. Instead, when I had to type out my Masters thesis, I started banging on the computer keyboard using two index fingers - and that's how I type, even today. I never looked back, at least not for my academic writing - my typing is at least legible. I used to hand write poems (mostly nonsensical limericks) for a long while - but these days I've become lazy enough that I type them out too.

Writing a whole draft by hand? I have nothing but admiration for the writers of old, who did just that (unless they were men who dictated their books to their long-suffering secretaries or wives). I suppose I could try using transcription software, and dictating a book to my computer - but I don't think I could get that it to work.

And so, I type away with two fingers. I don't think I could ever dare to attempt hand-writing a complete draft of a novel, or even a short story. It's not just my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad handwriting that gets in my way. A computer is essential to my process. Without the ability to cut and paste, move sections around, rewrite bits and pieces, connect threads and reshape storylines - my left hand using the Ctrl X, Ctrl V keys while I type with my right (yes, I'm dating myself with this reference) - without being able to highlight words and phrases to look up when I'm editing so I don't accidently introduce anachronisms into my historical novel, or incorrectly describe a sari or a piece of jewelry - I don't know how I would ever get to the end of my book.    

Besides, it would take too long, and I told you - I don't have the patience.       

Handwriting and the Singularity from James W. Ziskin

Handwritten or typed? Some writers, even today, will hand write a first draft. Some have 3d grade penmanship from the atrophy our handwriting has suffered. Do you still handwrite any part of your writing process or are you all type, all the time? 

I intended to write this week’s post by hand to prove a point, but it was going to take me five times longer to do it that way. So, in the end, I took the easy way out and decided to type it on a keyboard instead. And I’ll tell you why.

First of all, I would have had to use a physical dictionary if I’d wanted to check my spelling, which is impekable, but still. And, of course, I’d probably already have had a cramp in my hand if I’d been doing this the old-fashioned way.

Some people think writing by hand makes the experience more personal and somehow more virtuous than using a computer or a voice-to-text app. Pshaw! Those are the same folks who believe walking to the furniture store to carry that new queen-size sofa bed back home on their backs is preferable to borrowing a friend’s pick-up truck for the job. Or maybe just order it online using a keyboard.

While it’s true that some technological advances feel more like slippery steps closer to the singularity, typewriters and keyboards ain’t one of them. They’re not going to take over the world and subjugate us all with their tapping and clicking. Okay, we might break a fingernail, but that’s about it.

Here are a few benefits keyboards afford us:

1. Thanks to keyboards, we can erase our errors without leaving a trace. No one needs to know we’re clumsy typists. But you can’t erase pen ink, and who among us hasn’t torn a perfectly fine sheet of paper in a fit of pencil-erasing zeal?
2. Bad penmanship is a scourge of the past. We no longer need to strain our eyes and patience trying to read our own chicken scratchings. (Except on a grocery list.)
3. Spelling errors are (mostly) under control, thanks to the myriad technologies that we access via keyboards.
4. Keyboards also free us from the drudgery of alphabetical order. QWERTY is much more efficient than ABCDE, isn’t it? (AZERTY, si vous êtes français.)
5. And who can forget that pianos became much easier to play once they added keyboards. I upgraded my spinet last year and no longer need to whack away with eighty-eight handheld, felt-tipped hammers.

Let’s be honest. We rarely need handwriting these days. We can scan documents with our phones, dictate speech-to-text, and listen to text-to-speech. We can ask our digital assistants (future overlords) for all manner of assistance, including writing. And, of course, we can even create fonts that mimic our own handwriting. Smudged ink will go the way of the dinosaurs.

But don’t fret. Handwriting will always have its place for signing documents. Oh, wait. There are digital signatures now. Damn!

Perhaps when the singularity comes, a robot will forge our signature and sell our house out from under us. In that case, we won’t need that queen-size sofa bed.

570

Sldkghhslkhn

The pen is mightier

Handwritten or typed? Some writers, even today, will hand write a first draft. Some have 3rd grade penmanship from the atrophy our handwriting has suffered. Do you still hand write any part of your writing process or are you all type, all the time?

by Dietrich

Let’s face it: a final manuscript must be typed. What editor or publisher would touch a handwritten draft, no matter how neatly penned? That said, there’s something special about handwriting those early brainstorming notes or even an entire first draft, something that transcends mere nostalgia. 

No question, handwriting is slow, but that’s precisely its strength. The deliberate pace forces me to linger, letting ideas simmer and take shape. The rhythmic scratch of the pen allows me to pause, reflect, and refine as I write. For me, this slowness unlocks creativity. And a plain notebook becomes a quiet sanctuary, free from the distraction of incoming emails, pop-up ads and social media. No “quick Twitter checks” that spiral into an hour-long doom-scroll. In a world of constant digital noise, that’s no small thing.

There’s also evidence to back this up. Studies suggest handwriting can improve retention of conceptual information compared to typing. When I jot down ideas by hand, they do seem to stick with me longer. Am I alone in this?

But let’s not romanticize handwriting too much. When it’s time for the second draft, the keyboard is king. Typing is fast, fluid, and efficient, letting thoughts pour onto the screen almost as quickly as they form. It’s perfect for capturing a rapid-fire burst of ideas or restructuring a scene with a few clicks. Cut, copy, paste—try doing that with a pen. Anyone else nostalgic for the days of Wite-Out?

Using a computer makes revisions a breeze. I can reorganize entire chapters, tweak dialogue, delete that paragraph I thought was brilliant at 2 a.m. but now reads like crap. And let’s not forget backups—cloud storage and external drives keep the work safer than a notebook.

The sweet spot lies in blending both worlds. I love marking up a printed second draft by hand, circling awkward phrases and scribbling notes in the margins. Reading the draft aloud, pacing the room with pages in hand, helps me catch clunky dialogue or pacing issues that might slip by on a screen. It’s a tactile way to reconnect with the work.

Ultimately, it’s about what fuels the creativity. I don’t always write my first draft by hand, sometimes the keyboard calls from the start. But staying open to both methods keeps my process fresh and flexible. One day, I might be sprawled on the couch with a pen and notebook, lost in the flow of ink. The next, I’m hammering out a scene at my desk, the keyboard keeping pace with my thoughts.