A deep-dive workshop into the creative power of solitude and the subconscious. This workshop will have a focus on life and nature writing, how we can best tell our stories, how we can tell them through the natural world, and how to explore and expand a single moment in time.
We will discuss how a busy life can provide us inspiration, but how we should encourage quieter moments to process. It will inspire attentiveness to the smaller details of the world around us.
Although the focus is on writing, the emphasis will be on creativity in general and encourages people from all walks of life and disciplines.
Refreshments provided.
Jade Angeles Fitton is a writer and journalist, and an award-winning producer.
Jade’s first book, Hermit, was published by Penguin Random House/Hutchinson Heinemann in May 18th 2023.
'I never imagined that the wind would blow me here, to a kind of isolation I have never experienced... There is never anything out here but my shadow, that no one treads on any more'
When Jade's partner leaves the barn that they moved into just weeks before, he leaves a dent in the wall and her life unravelled. Numbed from years in a destructive, abusive relationship, she faces an uncertain future and complete solitude. Slowly, with the help of Devon's salted cliffs and damp forested footpaths, Jade comes back to life and discovers the power of being alone.
As Jade reacclimatizes, she considers what it means to live alone. Through conversations with other hermits across the world, Fitton sheds light on the myriad - and often misunderstood - ways of living alone: from monks to hikikomori, and the largely ignored female hermit. Jade questions whether hermitic living is possible in an era of constant communication and increased housing costs as she finds herself financially unstable and itinerant. She realises that home doesn't exist within walls, but within the landscape of her childhood home county.
Lyrically written, this is an inspirational story of recovery, of finding home, and of celebrating solitude in the natural world.