Head to Tale: The NWP Writing Retreat Participant

By: Rebecca Dierking
Publication: The Voice, Vol. 8, No. 5
Date: 2003

Summary: In early August, the NWP Professional Writing Retreat established an east coast beachhead at the Whispering Pines Conference Center at Kingston, Rhode Island.

In early August, the NWP Professional Writing Retreat established an east coast beachhead at the Whispering Pines Conference Center at Kingston, Rhode Island. The venue, reminiscent of the setting of the movie On Golden Pond, provided a compatible environment for the writing time, response, and camaraderie that have become hallmarks of NWP professional writing retreats. Present at the Rhode Island-based retreat were Joe Check, Carol Tateishi, and Tom Fox, founders of the original professional writing retreat held in 1999 at Santa Fe.

Who is a typical National Writing Project Writing Retreat participant? Just reading the title, one would think a participant would be someone with lots of abbreviations at the end of his name, like Ph.D. or Esq. Not so. A writing retreat participant is a turtle. Yes, a turtle.

The "typical" participant—whatever that means—is a person who at the beginning of the retreat feels intimidated by the "loftiness" of everyone else's article subject. He thinks, "Wow! What am I doing here?"

Pictured are participants and coaches at the first east coast NWP Professional Writing Retreat held at Whispering Pines Conference Center, Kingston, Rhode Island.

Then he, or in many cases she, starts writing his article and maybe discusses very tentatively his article's progress at his first response-group reading. After the positive, supportive replies from his group members, he feels more comfortable stepping out of his protective shell—a hesitantly exposed toe here, a boldly displayed leg there.

He may retreat briefly at workshops given by the "expert" director of the retreat or an NWP editor. But soon he realizes, "Hey, this is really useful stuff!" At the same time, he talks informally to others not in his response group and the other directors of the retreat; they bond. By the Saturday night reading, he has received so much constructive response and helpful guidance for his article that he's ready to stick his neck out.

At the Saturday night reading session, each turtle emerges bravely from his shell and shares just a snippet of his article. Some fast-moving beings boast they have completed their piece while at the retreat, but most admit to still just plodding along. At the reading, participants hear a variety of accents, the cosmopolitan seagoing turtles who drop their final r's and add them to words ending in a and the freshwater turtles who drawl out all words, speaking at a leisurely pace. Still other turtles seem to have no accent at all, speaking at a steady pace and pronouncing every syllable.

After spending several days in close company, the parting seems unusually difficult. However, our "typical" participant knows that he'll be in touch with the others, even if only through the retreat anthology. Back into the "real world," he bores his local teacher-consultants with tales of how great the retreat was, droning on and on about the food, the people, the food, the place, and the food. He waits eagerly for word of publication of other participants' articles and cheers them on in his best, maybe acquired, Rhode Island accent, with: "Look at those snappahs!"

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