“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut,” writes Stephen King in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

This is the most precise writing advice. Read everyday, return to prose you love, study sentences, seek out writers you admire—then open a blank page and entertain yourself. Some writers I admire: Clarice Lispector, Jhumpa Lahiri, Bryan Washington, Sheila Heti, Deborah Levy, Arundhati Roy, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, Olga Tokarczuk, Alex Dimitrov, Karl Ove Knausgård. I mostly enjoy reading that challenges me and stretches the conventions of language.

In that spirit, I’m sharing my essential list for you to grow your library of knowledge. All of these books have changed my life in some way, shaping how I understand the responsibility of writers in our world. And don’t forget—it’s chic and cool to support your local bookstore.

Nonfiction:

1. Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy

   

2. Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas, Clarice Lispector

   

3. Alphabetical Diaries, Sheila Heti

   

4. My Struggle Books 1-6, Karl Ove Knausgård

   

5. In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri

   

6. The Cost of Living, Deborah Levy

Fiction:

1. A Breath of Life, Clarice Lispector

   

2. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

   

3. Flights, Olga Tokarczuk

   

4. Hot Milk, Deborah Levy

   

5. Swimming Home, Deborah Levy

6. The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector

   

7. To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara

   

8. Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen

   ---

   The Writing Ritual September 1-25

Gather virtually to read and write together with our four-week creative writing program. Over the month, you’ll gain new tools and techniques of the craft, discover unique ways of telling stories, sharpen your reading, and befriend your drafts. Whether you’re new to journaling, a poet, an essayist, or a professional writer, the program is intentionally designed to span genres and skill levels. Because we all have stories waiting to be told, we just need to develop a personal ritual to unlock them.

• Four 1-hour workshops on craft + technique

• 20 generative prompts

• Four readings

• Opportunity to submit up to 15 pages of writing for editorial feedback

• One 15 minute 1:1 call with Simone to discuss your writing goals and process

• A supportive, uplifting, creative community to help you stay accountable + learning

• Opportunity to gain feedback and workshop with other writers

Reserve Your Space

My ex used to joke that I was the mayor of Brooklyn because no matter what borough we were in, I’d run into someone I loved, and who loved me in return. After our wedding, he got ‘Brooklyn’ tattooed directly above his heart, “where my life began.” I could say the same, after our first date at Iona in Williamsburg, on a humid summer evening in July. I can say my life began, again, on a spring morning in Paris, when I woke up with the freedom to be anyone.

In Paris, I love when friends voicenote me and say: Your life in Europe looks so gorgeous, you look happy again, but I know the internet doesn’t tell the full picture. Are you good?

That gives me the room to say my life in Europe is very nice, I’m quite content. And—my grief is still a fire inside of me that’s as bright as the sun. It burns me every day. Both can exist at once, just like Paris and New York can exist at once, never stopping because of the other.

In Paris, I love meeting Germaine and Prachi at Loustic on Rue de la Folie Méricourt for a bottle of wine, and then another, and then another, even if I hate it the next morning. It reminds me of Rhodora Wine Bar on Adelphi Street, where my New York friends and I once stayed up so late laughing and talking that they had to kick us out of the restaurant, and then had to kick us off the street.

I also once loved flying from my hometown in California, where there is no trash in sight, to JFK and taking a taxi to my apartment. The most familiar and comforting feeling was the grit—the bags on the street, the cigarette butts on the cement next to the trash can, the Fulton street stop that assaults the senses. It was the feeling that vacation had ended and I was finally home, to my home, in Brooklyn.

In Brooklyn, I touched every square inch of my apartment, watched new art go up on the walls weekly, brought colorful rugs back from Oaxaca and Morocco. I finally had the stoop I had dreamed about since I was a kid and visited my aunt and uncle’s two story loft in TriBeCa, it didn’t matter that was the ugliest stoop on the block. I loved people walking in and saying it was the most beautiful home in Brooklyn. I loved those words: beautiful home. I think this space was the truest expression of who I am.

And then I, quite literally, ran out the door and left an entire life behind.

Can you imagine running away from the most beautiful thing you’ve ever possessed?

A stranger is living in my old life, with my library of books and my dining room table and my indoor garden I moved from Williamsburg and grew for over a decade. I admit I killed so many plants and bought so many more. When I stopped by my beautiful home on a short trip back, the stranger had taken all of my fridge magnets off and put them in a ziplock bag. She took down the Japanese fan from the living room wall and put it under the bed. I fucking love the Japanese fan. She moved my writing desk into her mom’s garage, in storage, in Jersey, and told me this when I walked in the door to collect all of my old journals. She had made my home her own.

The other day, someone who moved from New York to Paris said they were having a difficult time letting it go. They asked how I did it. I told them the truth—I don’t look at photos, I don’t think about it, I avoid it like the plague. I mute my beloved, New York. Because to fantasize about New York is to lust after a life that no longer exists in the form I once knew it. Beautiful home. My body is somewhere else, my mind is waiting to catch it.

I think a lot about words, obsess over finding the perfect one. So here’s two: expat and immigrant. I straddle the line between them. Expat conveys a sense of ease and privilege, of which I have both. Immigrant presents challenges, lack of opportunity. Both are about starting over. And here is what I know about starting over—it is really hard, every day, until one day, it is less hard, because one day you are a softer version of yourself and soft things are hard to break.

My last year in New York, I broke into so many tiny pieces of myself, I could not imagine I would ever fit back together again. They say the three most stressful experiences in life are: death, divorce, and moving. I was already dealing with death and divorce, although I was really not dealing at all. I couldn’t add moving into the dark abyss. But I also couldn’t stay.

Because everything had happened here. I had gotten married here, cutting into the “Brazilian babes” inscription as we fed each other wedding cake. I had held someone through a deep well of grief here. I had watched a lot of video games played here. I had read books, meditated, stretched, loved, and cooked. I had fed so many friends here, and I’ll never forget it. I had been left here, sobbing on the hardwood floor. I want to forget it.

And now I’m between. Between two cities. Bagels and croissants. Between a past life and the present one. Between expatriation and immigration. Between languages and flavors. Pain and pleasure. Joy and suffering.

I finally know what it means to be fully human.

The Writing Ritual September 1-25

Our 4-week creative writing program designed for writers of all levels to get ideas moving from your mind to the page.

• Weekly workshops on craft and technique, Mondays 12-1PM EST | 6-7PM CET

• New tools for looking at the world and creating stories out of everyday moments

• 5x/week generative writing prompts

• Weekly readings

• A supportive community to stay accountable in your personal ritual

  Reserve your spot

  Book Clubs: What We’re Reading:

  Paris, September 4th: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

  The astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl. In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them—along with Callie's failure to develop—leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all. Pulitzer Prize–winner, 2002.

  

  New York, August 29: Flesh by David Szalay

  Teenaged István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he is a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and is soon isolated, drawn instead into a series of events that leave him forever a stranger to peers, his mother, and himself. In the years that follow, István is born along by the goodwill, or self-interest, of strangers, charting a rocky yet upward trajectory that lands him further from his childhood, and the defining events that abruptly ended it, than he could possibly have imagined. Booker Prize winner, 2025.
  

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I am 19 the first time I live in Paris. A twin size bed off the RER B. It’s end of fall, and then winter, and then on my 20th birthday, I ask my friends to come with me to Shakespeare & Co., my favorite bookstore. They bring me a cake and I blow out my candles in the snow. The next morning, I am on a flight back to America. This is the start of my youth. Always here or there, in the aisle seat, thinking about how to get back to France.

I am 19, and I start my first blog. It’s called French Kissed. I write terribly about traveling around Europe and my French teacher, Claudia, who smokes Vogues in the school courtyard on our lunch break and takes us to plays. I write terribly about French parties, and French pastries, and I keep writing and I do not stop.

I am 19, and after school, I go to the Carrefour with my girlfriends and buy the cheapest bottles of champagne, and drink them in the sun in Parc Monceau, or along the canal, or close to the Bastille, where I go to school. The sun is so bright and so yellow and I will never be this trusting again.

I am 19, and sitting in Jardin du Luxembourg, again with the girlfriends and perhaps some champagne. We start talking with two French men, although one of them is shy in English, and so he sits in his leather jacket, in the heat, quiet, with a poetry book in his back pocket. His name is Jean-Pierre, and he’s 26. That night, we all get beers in the Bastille. I stand outside with Jean-Pierre while he’s smoking under the awning, lost in translation. We decide to meet regularly to practice speaking with each other, and we stick to our agreement. At the red circular table near the Sorbonne, we become not-strangers.

I am 19, and I go to Cafe Oz and hate myself the next morning. I follow my friend Ali to get into all of the clubs because no one can resist a Californian girl who speaks French with a confidence I yearn for. I go to Buttes Chaumont regularly. I live at Shakespeare & Co. and I bring everyone who visits.

I am 19, and the kindest visitor is my first love, J., who I met standing around a fountain on a free walking tour in Barcelona. He flies to Paris to sleep with me in my twin-size bed like it’s the most important thing he’s ever done in his life. Like Jean-Pierre, he’s 26, and no one has ever been so tan or so handsome. In fall, at the bookstore, I fall asleep on one of the beds and J. takes a photo of me sleeping among books. It becomes my favorite photo ever. In winter, he returns, and we eat chocolate beignets at the Christmas market and climb to the top of the Arc de Triumph. He is so adoring, my father thinks we might get married, although I was never a woman that talked about marriage. He was the Oliver to my Elio, and I remember everything.

I am 20, back in California, still writing.

I am 20, in America, and Jean-Pierre’s letters arrive regularly to Santa Barbara. He buys the biggest postcards he can find with photos of Paris on it, addresses them to “My Muse…” then continues filling a separate page with all of his thoughts. For six years, we write each other letters. He tells me he hopes to come to California one day. I tell him I hope to return to Paris in another lifetime. I look at photos of us at the red table, not understanding each other but desperately hungry to understand each other.

I am 21, and I return to Paris for three weeks. Milk Studios has offered me a travel writing job, which they should not have done. I am still a terrible writer. Milk Studios is also in Paris for Fashion Week, and ask me to help the team. I run around the city, sleeping at the W Hotel near the Opéra Métro stop, going to fashion events. They shut down Les Deux Magots for an afterparty for everyone who is anyone in New York. I am young and out of place with all of these people. I am still a Californian, after all. After the parties, I call my friend Grégoire to hang out. He takes me out with French people to a random bar, and I feel much more like myself.

I am 26, and return to Paris for a week alone. I remember nothing about this trip, except a feeling that I must come to Paris every year and get lost, no matter how familiar the city is.

I am 28, and I fall in love at first sight. I gift him New York, and he gifts me Brasil, and somewhere in-between I stop dreaming about Paris.

I am 30, and on September 17, 2021, under the gingko tree in Prospect Park, I say I Do. I have never felt more certain of anything. And still, I think to myself, why does everyone think 30 is an appropriate age to get married?

I am 34, and I get divorced. It happens over text, and I never see the man again. I want to die. The divorce is so abrupt, an earthquake, shattering every single piece of myself. I sign the divorce papers, alone, in a tiny mailroom on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, weeping into my hands. “It gets easier after this,” the woman behind the counter says, after I hand her back the papers that will end it all. “Will it?” I ask. Not a single bone in my body believes her. Four hours later, I am on a flight to Paris.

I am 34, and I arrive to Charles de Gaulle with nowhere to stay. At the airport, I find a hotel in the 11th. I wake up in the morning, eat a croissant while smoking a cigarette and text my friends in New York: “Am I French yet?” I find an AirBnb for ten days, meet a French guy who looks strikingly like my ex, and rent an apartment in Belleville. He tells me not to leave Paris and I want to believe him. I get ghosted, but I stay in Paris, and decide I am not going to date for the next two months, when my visa ends. I do not date. Instead, I get an idea for my memoir. I start writing.

I am 34, and I return to New York to apply for my long-term residence visa. I want to move to Paris, for good. I return to the apartment in Belleville. Grégoire meets me at midnight with the keys and helps me carry my luggage upstairs, to begin the new life that stretches on in front of me. I have an immigration party and get yelled at by the old French lady who lives above me for being too loud, too late. I have new friends and I am so alive.

I am 35, and I spend Christmas in Bretagne with Grégoire’s family. We take walks by the sea and read books by the fire and he stares wistfully out the window as we ride the train back to Paris together. We hug each other at the Métro when our line splits, and then keep texting as soon as we get home. We send each other 40 texts a day.

I am 35, and I am one of the last people to speak to Grégoire before he dies.

I am 35, single, childless, and living in a studio the size of my dorm-room at 19. I have a full-size bed this time.

I am 35, and I lust after nothing. I am free.

The Writing Ritual Prompt: Lusting After Cities

We all have a city that gave us life. Or a second life. A place we once visited, or lived, that took hold of our heart and shook something alive. Write a letter to the city that moved you and bring your reader on a journey through your memories.

If you complete the prompt, please send back what you wrote. (I love hearing from you.)

The Writing Ritual Workbook: Coming Soon

Our first notebook will feature a month of thoughtful prompts for inner and outer awareness that you can do on your own, anywhere and anytime. Sign up to be the first to know when they become available.

Stay in the know

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It doesn’t matter that I say he’s kind.

It doesn’t matter that I say he tells me all the things

I need to hear after the abandonment.

I like the coke head.

When I ask how long he’s been dealing,

he looks at me, shocked: dealer?

Like it’s as bad as me hearing the word Affair.

He says sell, and he’s been selling since he was 17. He’s 31.

I kiss him and I hold him and my god what spell did he put on me.

My therapist says I date emotionally immature men.

But I can’t help it when he whispers:

Babygirl, you’re so beautiful.

Babygirl.

Babygirl.

I want to be this man’s girl so badly. Do I.

But also: I do not want to call him back when he says:

“Hi, I’m busy, can you call me in 20 minutes?”

and instead I wait 30 minutes to hear from him, and

I do not call and neither does he,

and I hate when my own poem tells me that I need

to end something before its even begun. And—

on the topic of men,

it has been three years since my ex father-in-law

turned to ashes and all week I am running around

Paris’ canal and sobbing and not saying his name

because it is easier than remembering a family

I once had. It is easier than remembering our hands

held in the hallway, without light and without sight,

as he whispered familia, aqui, corazon, Brasilia, entende,

and easier than remembering his son screaming:

You’re not my wife!

I never wanted to be a husband.

I want to be alone!

Like I was a poison and not a lover, or a human.

My god not

even a human. I once married a stranger and it’s not a lie.

I hate when my own poems make me weep.

I hate men when all I am is kind to men.

Never a voice raised, never more than:

Be exactly as you are, and I’ll still love

the broken parts of you.

And still.

Today I saw the first man who reminded me in the

possibility of love after love lost,

the one who said,

Simone est ma copine,

everyone Meet Simone!

and whispered, Simone…don’t leave Paris, get an apartment

in the 19eme, close to me, baby,

before he silenced.

I saw him walking down My hill, on Rue de Belleville,

appearing like a ghost who vanished.

He kissed me on one cheek before

he gave me a hang loose,

before he kept walking.

Almost as bad as getting divorced over text.

Almost.

And still.

Some days I think being divorced is so cool

and so chic and everyone is obsessed with me.

I am a Baby girl!

I am a copine

I am a louloute

and speaking of loulou, mon loulou told me

he’d be around to talk when the only man I trusted

killed himself, and then he disappeared.

I told loulou I was a bit hurt he wasn’t there

when I needed him — he knew how close I was with G. —

and he replied

“I’m going to tell you what I tell everyone,

I dont have more time to give,

and I’m not in love with you.”

My God, reasons to hate men.

And my god

I love men.

I love being on the coke head’s couch

when he gets bigger than my ex ever could

and I can’t help but laugh because I never came so loud

during my marriage, but also cry

because that sex held

love and love and love,

and the tenderness was enough for five years.

It was kind and unmemorable and loving, married sex,

and I don’t remember anything about his body like I

know everything about the men’s after.

All the crushes who reminded me I’d survive without him.

Without who?

How rotten to write of someone else’s husband.

My god,

I hate men,

And my god,

how I love men.

The Writing Ritual Prompt: Themed List

Begin by creating a list around any theme—pleasures, places you’ve been in the past 24 hours, reasons to be happy, people you could have married, what you’ve seen out your window recently. Make your list as detailed as possible, incorporating any sensory details, dialogue, or memories that arise. Write for 5-7 minutes in bullet points or paragraphs. After you’ve built your list, try turning it into a poem, leaving something unresolved or unsettled.

The Writing Ritual June: Writing Under the Sun

Our 4-week creative writing program designed for writers of all levels to get ideas moving from your mind to the page.

• Weekly workshops on craft and technique

• New tools for looking at the world and creating stories out of everyday moments

• 5x/week generative writing prompts

• Weekly readings

• A supportive community to stay accountable in your personal ritual

  Reserve Your Spot

Book Clubs: What We’re Reading:

Paris, June 4 — She Who Remains, Rene Karabash

A poetic novel set high in Albania’s Accursed Mountains, the protagonist Bekija escapes an arranged marriage by becoming a sworn virgin, renouncing her womanhood to live as a man. Her decision sets off a brutal chain of events, destroying her family and separating her from the one she loves the most. She Who Remains was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026.

New York, June 18 — I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman

As The New Yorker writes, “this is a book about finding yourself at the end of the world.” This dystopian novel follows the experiences of an unnamed young girl and thirty-nine older women living imprisoned in a cage with no recollection of how they got there. It was originally published in French as Moi qui n'ai pas connu les hommes in 1995.

In perhaps the hundreds of hours I’ve spent reading—and re-reading—the varied struggles of Karl Ove Knausgård, I’ve met just two people who like him. I would invite anyone else to come out of hiding and announce themselves.

The New York Times recently published a series titled The Essentials: What to read by authors who have shaped our world, featuring the likes of Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, and Stephen King, among others. Polarizing as he is, Knausgård, the Norwegian author known for transforming the mundane into extraordinary autofiction, made the list.

Two reflections perhaps sum up readers differing sentiments best:

“Karl Ove Knausgaard is an astonishing writer. In his stories he chooses the mundanity of everyday life that all people experience (and can relate to) over the concocted fictions that most writers create that manipulate you to a certain conclusion. His work asks questions and does not provide answers. He recognizes the inherent strangeness of conscious life and asks the truly great questions - what am I doing? and why am I doing it?”

“That year, I matched with someone on OKCupid. When she asked what I was reading and I responded “Knausgaard,” I was blocked.”

We tend to believe that writing requires something important to happen—a turning point, a crisis, a story worth telling. But one of the radical gestures in Knausgård’s work is the refusal of that idea. He insists, sometimes almost aggressively, that nothing is too small. Not making a coffee, not a single conversation with his wife, not sitting in a car thinking the same thought again and again. In fact, he suggests that what we call “important” often arrives disguised as the ordinary. And what we dismiss as boring may be the closest thing we have to truth. And what most readers want, without even knowing they seek it, is the truth.

When I read—Knausgård or otherwise—I read through two lens. The first, for context, plot, understanding, and pleasure. The second, and perhaps more important, is to grasp onto language that is outside of myself. In the latter, I am a perpetual student, studying how an author chooses to tell a story, studying how an author breathes life into passages by reaching toward what cannot quite be said, studying tonality, sentence structure, punctuation.

Knausgård has famously published six autobiographical novels called My Struggle, Books 1-6. They are a private life and private thoughts made visible. And why name it anything other than what the human experience is—a struggle, filled with deep nuance, love, ache, questioning, profundity, and ordinariness. That is his truth, and also all of ours. His writing offers an approach to life that is life itself; he lingers on the banal and hums over the ordinary. And in-between, he intricately weaves philosophical meditations on what it means to be human.

Here are three lessons I’ve extracted on writing through the lens that banality as revelation—

Nothing is too small

When you pay attention to Knausgård’s writing, you notice how often nothing happens. A cigarette is smoked. A child’s shoe is tied. Milk is poured, spilled, wiped up. Why record this? Because a life is not made up of highlights reel; it is made up of minutes. Most of our existence occurs in moments we did not think were worth remembering. And yet, those moments shape us as much as the dramatic ones. Over time, these moments reveal versions of our past selves and the patterns we’ve acquired over time.

Knausgård’s wager is this: If you describe a moment precisely enough, it becomes meaningful—not because it is exceptional, but because it is real.

Meaning Accumulates Through Time

What we assign meaning to does not arrive all at once; it accumulates. We rarely understand our lives in moments of clarity, but retroactively, gradually, often without realizing we are doing so.

Often times, in writing, you don’t need metaphor or abstract language to convey meaning. Sometimes you just need duration—staying with a scene, staying with a thought, staying when it might seem boring. Reading Knausgård is like watching someone age in real time, not because dramatic things happen but because time is allowed to pass on the page. This might feel counterintuitive for writers who were trained to expect efficiency. This requires the courage not to confess something shocking, but the courage to admit: This is how long it really took. This is how repetitive or ordinary it was. The process as narrative, rather than a summary of its conclusions.

Write from Interiority

It is important to enter the world of storytelling from the place you know best—inside of yourself. As you pass time in ordinary ways, can you ask yourself a quieter question: what is happening inside while nothing seems to be happening externally? What would it look like to peel back the layers of your inner landscape on the page? Lay bare your emotional complexities on the page, open a wound, and carve into the scars that tear your heart open. In between long spurts of dialogue, monotonous tasks, and parenthood, Knausgård always comes back to interiority. Reach inside of yourself and allow what you extricate to unfold for the reader—you might be surprised how much they read themselves in you.

The Writing Ritual February — Life as Poetry

Much of what we do in The Writing Ritual revolves around active looking and reflection. With the simple and profound practice of writing every day, we are naturally more inclined to observe the world around us with a keen eye and open ears. Over four weeks, we write the banal, the mundane, the every day—through the lens of life as poetry. It’s true there are stories waiting to be born in every moment, conversation, and decision.

Expect weekly workshops, 20 creative prompts to generate ideas, accountability from a community of writers, and a journal full of new stories. New or seasoned writers alike are welcome.

SIGN UP HERE

Greece Artist Retreat — 6 Days in Chios at the Descover Artists Home

We’re halfway filled up for our retreat on the heavenly island, where we’ll gather for a full immersion into our creative practice. This week is intentionally designed as an uninhibited time to dive into the creative project you’ve been dreaming about, or offer time to dream one up and bring it to fruition. Be moved emotionally between the wind and waves, and allow your words to bloom on the page. Less structure, more rule-breaking. Daily yoga, morning pages, creative workshops, a glass of wine at sundown, and conversations with yourself. Arrive as you are and leave with a sense of expansion.

RESERVE YOUR SPOT

Below are submissions from The Writing Ritual’s global community on a prompt we answered together, re-shared with permission from the authors.

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I used to wake with your name buzzing in my head, like a radio left on over night. Not because I wanted you back but because something in me had not put the memory down yet. The dreams kept pulling you in, replaying scenes that were never as clear in real life as they are at three in the morning.

I don’t know if it was love or hurt wearing loves clothes or just the echo of who I was when we knew each other. Maybe it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I am tired of holding you in a place that was meant to stay empty till something better arrived.

So I’m setting it all down. The missteps, the sharp words, the warmth that somehow survived both.

You can stay in the past.
I’ll stay here, awake, moving forward.

How did I think it was a good idea to liken you to the Moon?
Now on the darkest of nights, I yearn for your brightness.
And when you are full, I wish you'd behold my awe.
But as I Slink around, searching for a place to call mine,
Still wishing I could curl up in your ever-waxing cresent,
I know that your permeating glow is not mine alone to bathe in.
How did I think it was a good idea to liken you to the Moon?
So I'll need only look up to relish in your sweeping radiance once again.

Chère J,
Tu m'as dit un jour "le mec sait pas gérer ses émotions". Tu avais raison, à l'époque je ne gérais pas du tout la tristesse, et j'ai sombré. J'ai traversé beaucoup d'épreuves depuis et j'en suis sorti beaucoup plus fort. Tu as fait ce qui te semblait être bon pour toi, j'ai mis du temps à l'accepter et à le comprendre. J'ai passé avec toi des moments merveilleux: des moments "simples" mais que je n'oublierai jamais car ce furent des moments de bonheur ultime. Aujourd'hui je t'aime encore et tu me manques. Je meurs d'envie de te voir, ou à défaut d'avoir de tes nouvelles, mais les réponses me font trop peur.
Avec Amour,
Celui qui a été un jour "ton G"

Please never let go, baby.

I’m losing myself, let’s please hold hands.
I am no longer, let’s hold on tightly.
As you cry out for me, you don’t know I’m crying too.
Crying for you.
Tears of happiness, tears of fear, of grief and growing pains, and love.

Because to you, I am everything.
And what you don’t know is I am nothing, nothing I am supposed to be.
I have nothing but a mother’s love.

I cry, is that enough?

Abandonment makes the whole world sing out of tune, except my heart kept beating for him. I tried to explain this, my neck tucked into my chest, as I sobbed at our kitchen table months later. All he could reply is that his therapist says he is not responsible. Perhaps he forgot all of the times he showed up at the door crying, saying he was so sorry, he didn’t know what he was doing, and I held him gently and stroked his hair. This time, he stood up, looked at me like a gross inconvenience, and walked out the door without touching me. Where did my love go and who was this stranger, I wondered. Shortly after, he texted me he was divorcing me. I did not know it was possible to become someone’s trash, but now I know.

A boy once left her drowning in a lake. He walked away as she sank, fully clothed, mouth gaping, hands grasping. She believed for years her rage kicked her to the surface. She believed her stories of this man built the forest she now calls home, lost tear stained pages fluttering aimlessly to an already blanketed forest floor. Yet she knew of a woman who taught her how to swim. For whom a hush now falls. No birds chirp their song of regret. No winds blow the rage of loss. There is no path to that hidden lake from which she emerged so long ago. She sits amongst her fallen words. Beginning again to feel the water in her lungs. She begs. One cracking branch. One single soaring bird. One fallen tree. Any sound from her own creation would be enough to pierce the numbness. To remind her how to kick her legs.

I’ve been seeing bees a lot lately.
They land on my hands while I work,
hover near my chest when I sit by the trees,
linger close
as if I give off a warmth I can’t see.

I used to tense in their presence.
Now I feel something else
a quiet protection,
as if my body remembers how to belong here.

I let them stay.
I listen to the hum,
to the steadiness of their devotion.

I see now they don’t come to harm.
They come carrying order.
Beauty.
A soft, deliberate signal.

I feel them working through me,
repairing what went dormant,
pollinating the places that closed in,
the ones that never learned how to receive.

They mirror the calm settling of my own field,
as if they know
life doesn’t abandon what’s still breathing.

How intimate,
to feel myself growing sweet again.
How unexpected,
to sense honey forming
a nectar I once thought
I’d lost for good.

everyone needs an evil and an angel ex
one to build character
one to soften your soul
so tho only one of them loved me
i often thank them both

heartsick

for a smirk

for a shrug

for a sideways glance

and maybe someday a hug

heartsick

for a summer swim

cool wet dips

come out of the water

to your waiting lips

heartsick

for a laugh

for a time

at a table for two

with tacos and a lime

heartsick

for an adventure

for a surprise

perhaps a quick flight

to a palm beach sunrise

heartsick

for a morning

for a night

curling up

in your towering height.

If this prompt speaks to you, my inbox is always open to read your words. Or follow along here for upcoming calls for submissions.

Seeking creative nourishment and a deeper connection to your practice? Do you have 1,000 thoughts and no shape to form them in? The Writing Ritual is a deeply safe space to breathe life into your stories. Over four weeks, cultivate a meaningful relationship with writing—by writing every day. Discover new ways to observe the world around you, tune into your inner landscapes, and put words on the page. Virtual workshops, creative prompts, and a thoughtful community of writers. We begin February 2nd, and I can’t wait to read your dreams, hurt, love, and beauty.

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There are a tremendous amount of problems that ripple off the waves of divorce that I will not delve into here, lest I give away all the contents of my memoir. But as it relates to art, one problem I continually find myself coming back to is story owner. And by that I mean—two people live an intimate bond of love, two people live a heartache, one person heals with the intent of becoming whole again, another gets remarried faster than you can blink twice. Two stories of the same unraveling twisted a thousand different ways. Who gets to tell it? Should anyone tell it?

The intimacy of any relationship is sacred, private, a sanctuary built over years of work. When it ends and the love get swallowed up by suffering, isn’t it still our birthright as writers to tell the truth? Or should we lay the past to rest, in a grave, like we did a marriage?

The fact is I’m allowed to write about it. For over a year, I could not breathe without thinking about it. For over a year, I could not take a step without thinking about it. If an experience breaks you until you are nothing but a body on the floor, you are allowed to write about it.

In many ways, I would love to just let it go and write a new story. Wiser people make this sound so easy. But as Annie Ernaux wrote: “If I don’t write things down, they haven’t been carried through to completion, they have only been lived.” Unwritten, my divorce still feels so unfinished, incomplete, jagged.

At times, writing is very painful. At times, writing is completely impossible. The latter frightened me; it was as if my brain was so broken in hurt that I could not remember how to write a sentence.

Last week, I woke up with a fragmented memory and felt drawn to write it out. I fell in love with the sentences—they were raw in a way that only the heartbroken can touch. But they also cracked me way the hell open. As I re-read my first edit, my chest tightened. My jaw locked up. I went into full panic and couldn’t function for hours. It’s true: the body keeps the score.

That’s because writing about the past carries its own shape of longing. But it’s also necessary. Journaling as processing as a way back to life. Yet the catharsis depends on the pain of the memories, how deeply they cut and carved a wound. How much you benefit from the writing depends how much you still love and how much you still hurt, if you can sometimes still smell your shared laughter.

The past two years. There are not enough pages in the universe to hold it all. There are not enough pages to describe what it feels like to lose the person you thought was your soulmate by their own volition. To wake up in a life that is no longer yours. Yet I’m starting to fill some of those pages. I’m writing some poetry, some essays, some journal entries. I want to ask everyone to read them; I want no one to read them. The contradiction is strong when vulnerability is the currency.

The past two years. I added new words to my vocabulary that always felt like a foreign language, something out of reach that I’d never touch. Sorrow, grief, crouching, unraveling, betrayal, ex—. Ex-wife. Ex-husband. Husband was such a beautiful word; ex-husband just tastes bad.

New vocabulary, like Uncontested Divorce. Our two names in all caps with against between us, instead of the soft and that once held us together. His entire name used to be a poem to me; suddenly it made me want to crawl into a hole and disappear.

My new vocabulary asks questions like: What does it mean to be married? What does it mean to be divorced? What does it look like to begin again in Paris? I have a million questions! And I am answering them quietly, in introspection.

Life has given me a treasure trove of material to craft with—broken promises and depressing email chains and immigration status updates. As a writer, I’m glad I saved everything. As a human, as a woman, I wish it was swept away at sea never to be seen again.

As I build a future far away from the one I envisioned, I am working to bring words like ecstasy and pleasure back into the lexicon. I am replacing Portuguese lessons with French, and as I filled out the immigration forms—this time, my own—I couldn’t help but hate that I had to check the divorced box. And I couldn’t help but notice that divorced in French—divorcée—looks like the word for party, soirée. It has that je ne sais quoi, like a massage of the tongue.

Kind of chic, non?

Sometimes you have to taste pain to get to the sweetness. I am ready to devour the honey that is this new life. Alone. In Paris.

The Writing Ritual Prompt: Switching Perspectives

As narrators of our own lives, we tend to tell stories how we remembered them. We carefully carve our words and edit them to fit what suits us best. But what about those who also lived the experience?

Think about a pivotal moment in your life and write about it from the perspective of someone else. What were they thinking, what did they say, how did they perceive you? You can also try writing in their voice instead of your own.

Turn your phone on airplane mode and freewrite for 15 minutes on the prompt. You might be surprised what you discover in the reframing. Share what you wrote by replying to this email.

Did you hear…we’re going to Greece?

From May 19-25, 2026, we’re retreating on the heavenly island of Chios at the Eona mansion, home of the Descoverartists community. Every day, I’ll be leading writing workshops, but this is also a space for creatives of all mediums to gather and create art that makes them feel alive. Expect daily yoga with a local instructor, nourishing Greek cuisine, mindful hikes, swimming in the Aegean sea, stargazing, creative nourishment, and much more. This is intentionally crafted as a way of slowing down, tuning into the rhythm of the island, and connecting deeper with our craft—all while surrounded by other dreamers.

Chios Retreat

The Writing Ritual Book Clubs:

Paris | 12.4 | The Years by Annie Ernaux — Considered by many to be the iconic French memoirist’s defining work, The Years is told through the lens of memory, impressions, photos, headlines, and writing notes from six decades of diaries.

New York | 12.17 | Sky Daddy by Kate Folk — A debut novel of Folk follows the story of Linda, a San Francisco content moderator with an erotic fascination with airplanes.

Make my day, will you, and follow The Writing Ritual on Instagram.

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From May 19-25, 2026, we’re headed to Greece for a sacred artist retreat designed The Writing Ritual way—free, communal, and expressive.

Chios Artist Retreat

Over six days, tune into your personal writing ritual, engage with your craft, and share your stories with a dynamic group. While we will write together every day, creatives of all mediums are encouraged to join and use the space to work on their personal projects. Envision the week as a container to create art that makes you come alive and feel energized by others’ creative flow.

Our programming is thoughtfully curated to slow down and tune into the island’s rhythms:

SACRED MORNINGS: Meditation, yoga, morning pages

NATURE & CULTURAL EXPLORATIONS: Mindful hikes, swimming in the Aegean sea, visits to local museums, and more

CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOPS: Daily workshops to discover your voice, explore form and the craft, and write out your deepest thoughts

OPEN HOURS: Free time for solitude, contemplation, connection, and island adventures

EVENING RITUALS: Communal dinners onsite and in town, star-gazing, magic

Our home, Eona, is a sanctuary created by Christina of DescoverArtists, who has built an entire world around artistic expression and freedom. I’m grateful to host at this unique home—a restored, elegant mansion offering spacious accommodations, an art studio, private terrace, secluded garden, and citrus trees. Here, there will be time for contemplation and time for connection.

The retreat is now open and offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Accommodation includes private or shared rooms in the mansion.

If you have any questions about the experience, please get in touch. I’m looking forward to diving inward with you.

Learn More

I’ve been saying goodbye too much these days. Over and over and over. To friends, to dreams, to jobs, to clothing, to art on my walls, to the ginkgo tree, to expectations. But mostly, I’ve been doing the painstaking process of saying goodbye to a version of myself who no longer exists.

This week, I said goodbye to my bedroom that felt like a prison of memories I could not un-cling to. I said goodbye to the stoop. I said goodbye to the possibility of ending up on a stranger’s roof at dawn, looking out at the skyline, wondering if we’d ever be so young again. I said Goodbye to All That, for now, to go somewhere new, to become someone new.

I’ve done a lot of things in my life loudly. Surrounded by people and love. But this change felt too big to swallow the wholeness of it. I didn’t want to shout about it, make a scene. I wanted to leave softly. Without pain. Whisper. Take photos of Coney Island on film. Sit with my grandfather. Who knew one last coffee thing at Do or Dive could feel like something lost?

Maybe because I didn’t really want to leave my beloved. Like the moment when the bar closes and they turn on the lights, but everyone is still talking. I know I should go, my future self will thank me, but I can’t seem to get up and leave. Something has a hold on me, even though I know it’s time to move on.

But who ever really wants to move on from New York? It’s the type of place that forces you to find yourself, to love yourself, to loathe yourself, to lose yourself, and never veer the course of being you.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s an ending or if something new is just beginning. I wonder if leaving will change the shape of my grief so it does not stick to my ribs in the same way, unmoving, ever-present. I wonder if I’ll be happy. I wonder who I’ll choose to love. I wonder who I’ll become.

As Miranda July once wrote, “Not that I grew up all at once right then, but some things punch you in the face and you fly through the air and land somewhere completely different. You walk on from here.” One foot in front of the other, I have said goodbye and hello simultaneously.

Thank you readers, and everyone, who continues to hold me on my life journey—I wish you peace in your heart, freedom from suffering, an abundance of love, and a blank page to write your unique story.

The Writing Ritual Book Club continues to grow and live on in Brooklyn—on October 16th, we’re reading I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally, a memoir from the acclaimed New York restauranteur on life post-stroke, the heartbeat of NYC’s downtown scene, two failed marriages, five children, and the pain and pleasure of being alive. Reply to this email to RSVP.

Coming up: An Artist Retreat May 19-25 on the heavenly island of Chios, Greece, curated The Writing Ritual Way—free, expressive, and communal—with days informed by the cultural spirit and natural beauty of our surroundings. Register your interest to be the first to receive our official announcement.

Hello from Paris, the place I met my first love. He was the Oliver to my Elio, and I remember everything. Now, 15 years later, I returned to the city as a woman splintered—splintered between the woman I once was and the one I am becoming.

I arrived at the airport carrying a vast and shapeless void, holding a heartbreak so profound it knocked the whole world out of me. I hadn’t written for one year, one month, and 13 days. My thoughts were too crooked and my dreams were nightmares. More than once I thought about burning years of journals. Pain turns us into such unbearable creatures. As Joan Didion wrote in The Year of Magical Thinking: “I could not count the times during the average day when something would come up that I needed to tell him….What ended was the possibility of response.”

I arrived at the airport with nowhere to stay, and then found a hotel, followed by an AirBnb, followed by a petit maison in Belleville. The things that once mattered to me—a nice home, or a salary, or a new restaurant—become insignificant with loss. Here, I found a room of my own, with no art and no table and no oven, and it has been perfectly enough.

I started the process of shedding skin the day I realized I was ready to write again. Not spiraling thoughts or unsent messages or a plea for forgiveness, but deeply healing writing with the possibility of transforming my pain into a new form. I spent the next few weeks writing a large body of work, finding the first silver lining of the suffering. I hosted the first in-person Writing Ritual salon, where we wrote together in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish—a workshop dedicated to the tenderness of our memories. I launched new branding for The Writing Ritual. I wrote a poem a day and wept less with each word. I stopped feeling silenced by the whims of men because I had reclaimed my own voice.

Since then, my sorrow has echoed through my daily writing ritual—but it has also changed shape. I am re-writing my story. Art has allowed me some power in making sense of my new beginnings and releasing my past into the universe.

In Paris, I am allowing life itself to be the poetry. I still often wake up in the middle of the night gasping for breath. I scream into the air. I break things that mean something to me. I wish to bury every moment in which I have forgotten how to dance with the rhythm of life. But I am also writing, and in the words of Stephen King: “Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.”

So forward I go, word by word.

Merci d'avoir lu.

And while I’ve been away….

The Writing Ritual Book Club lives on in Brooklyn, New York. This month, we’re reading Open Throat by Henry Hoke on July 7th. Whether or not you’ve participated in a writing group, you’re welcome to join. We love every kind of reader—as long as you enjoy a little tea about where we’re traveling, who we’re dating, and what we’re working on in-between book discussion.

TWR Recommends: People, books, and ideas that have been inspiring me.

1. Watch Hot Milk adapted from the novel by Deborah Levy. The story follows a mother, Rose, and her daughter, Sofia, to a Spanish clinic in search of a medical cure for Rose’s paralysis. What unfolds is a journey filled with untamed desire and an unraveling of identities, as well as a deep questioning of what it means to truly stand on one’s one.

2. Read I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally, the restauranteur behind Balthazar. His memoir brings to life the profound loss of identity caused by his stroke, the unraveling of marriages, and the defeats of his life in the span of one marked by outward success.

3. Listen to this curated playlist, made for me by my dear friend Andy. He sent it to me the morning I left for Bali and it guided me along my journey. Everyone deserves an Andy in their life.

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   The Writing Ritual July, a 4-week creative writing program, is now open. Flow through summer with a creative sanctuary made up of weekly workshops, prompts, readings, and a lovely community to stay accountable. We dive in on Monday, July 7th.

   The Writing Ritual July

The Writing Ritual May

Join me for The Writing Ritual May — a 4-week creative writing program to explore your voice, strengthen your craft, and connect with a creative community. If you’re new to writing, looking for accountability, or want to sink into your creativity, you’re invited. All skill levels and time zones are invited to join.

• Participate in weekly hour-long workshops — every Monday from 5:00PM-6:00PM EST (Google Meet)

• Identify and set an intention for your writing goals for May

• Receive a creative prompt every weekday morning (20 prompts total)

• Stay accountable with a supportive & creative group (on WhatsApp)

• Share your work and receive feedback on stories

• Tap into your inner voice and sense of creativity

• Receive weekly readings

• Submit 1 longer piece of work for editor feedback

  The Writing Ritual May

My home is filled with journals kept over the years—writing done on planes and trains, writing done at my desk or in my bed, writing done in the early mornings before work. Pages and pages of myself. Pages and pages that make sense to no one but me—which is of course the beauty of keeping a journal. 

Journals are so much more than brain-dumping; they are a repository for who we are at a very specific moment in time. A home for our innermost thoughts when they have no place to go but the page. The contents are a mirror of one’s relationships, careers, happiness, grief, fears, anxieties, and pleasures.

Recently, I’ve been musing over Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti—a book made up of ten years of diaries, alphabetized to reveal profound reflections on men, children, art, money, travel, and being human. What’s most fascinating is the beauty of the prose she writes when no one is looking. Her sentences leave nothing to be desired. Of course this phenomenon of being intrigued by famous writers’ journals is nothing new; just look at ‘Getting Lost’ by the Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux or Susan Sontag’s Reborn, Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963. We find within their pages maps of the mind, confessions, shapeless thoughts. Full works of art in the most banal form.

I’ve been meditating recently on the power of journal-keeping and the self. My decades of penning reveal the woman I am, and also, an intimate look—word by word—to the many versions of me that have existed. If I hadn’t kept a journal, I’d have lost many of the memories that I still hold close and forgotten parts of my identity that defined my younger self.

Drawing inspiration from Heti, I started my own project entitled “The Love Diaries,” in which I’m tracking every sentence I’ve ever journaled relating to love—conversations, intimacy, falling in love, intuition, breakups, heartache, marriage, and so forth. The results are illuminating; I see so clearly my devotion to love in its entirety. Every sentence points back to the fact that my life is driven by the desire to love and be loved. Nothing else besides journaling (and A Great Love) has provided me with such clarity. The project also renewed my desire to journal daily, not only for the sake of writing but for its essential role in helping me rediscover myself and identify patterns.

This concept of journaling may seem pedestrian, but when was the last time you wrote in a journal? Yesterday? A week ago? A year ago? Blame our screens for stealing our attentions, and for making it more difficult to tune into our deepest thoughts and carve out time to write them down.

But, if you’re like me, and serious about writing and self-reflection…you have to Protect Your Journaling. No one else is going to protect it for you and no one else is will reap the emotional and spiritual benefits. Of course, there are strategies you can employ to get your journaling fix — writing first thing in the morning, writing every time you feel compelled to pick up your phone, writing with an accountability group — but you’ll have to find what works best for you. Two essentials for me? The perfect journal and a sexy pen.

Make a plan for the next for the next week. Maybe that’s committing to 15 minutes every day or maybe it’s three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing. When you’re journaling, practice being specific with your words instead of vague—Who did you see? What did they say? How is your heart? What did you dream last night? Who do you miss? Practice writing sentences you’d be curious to read in the future.

Then let me know how it goes for you. . . .

The Writing Ritual May

Writing allows us to make sense of the world and our surroundings, process our emotions, and build a rich library of memories. Sometimes it’s a practical way of recording moments we don’t want to forget, and other times it’s a spiritual practice of becoming present with ourselves. The beauty of writing is—unless you have an editor to appease—there’s no “wrong” way to write.

If you allow yourself to leave “craft” to the side for a while, and only write with the expectation that you’ll get your thoughts onto the page, you’ll reap the myriad benefits.

In my recent article for Well + Good, I dove into the emotional, spiritual, and physicals benefits of a daily writing ritual. A vast body of research proves that writing for no other reason than to just write can improve our sleep, our memory and cognition, our self-confidence, and our connection to ourselves. Like meditation for the soul.

Dan MacCombie, LAC told me: “As a society, we don’t really [focus on] connecting to our inner lives, where our hopes and dreams come from. Writing connects us to what’s inside of us in a really powerful way...helping us process our feelings of vulnerability.”

In the article, I offer tips for cultivating your own writing ritual, including:

• 3 different types of writing for processing emotions and boosting creativity

• Developing a writing ritual for any skill level or intention

• Insights from a therapist about how writing can help process trauma and even improve the functioning of our nervous system

• The beauty of ritualizing writing for your spirit, your body, and your relationship to self and others

You can read the full article here.

The Writing Ritual Recommends: A few people, books, and ideas that have been inspiring me recently.

1. Too Much of Life: the Complete Crônicas by Clarice Lispector, one of the most significant twentieth-century writers. The crônica, a literary genre peculiar to Latin American newspapers, allows writers to address a wide readership on any theme they like. The book features her collection of dispatches for the Jornal do Brasil published 1967 and 1977.

2. Jhumpa Lahiri everything. After seeing Lahiri speak at The New Yorker festival, I’ve been getting lost in the archives of her work. One of my favorite nonfiction essays “Teach Yourself Italian” explores her journey learning a new language, and eventually writing in a new language. Lahiri says she writes “To investigate the mystery of existence. To tolerate myself. To get closer to everything that is outside of me.”

3. Poet José Olivarez’s musings on what it means to be an immigrant in America today, as well as love, family, culture, class, race, home, and more. His work moves me again and again.

4. Drop-in classes at Brooklyn Poets in Brooklyn Heights. Fabulous workshops for those who want to try their hand at poetry in-person.

The Writing Ritual November, a 4-week creative writing program, is now open! We dive in on Monday, November 6th with workshops, daily prompts, and lessons on process and craft for new and seasoned writers alike. Learn more and sign up here!

The Writing Ritual November

• Set an intention for your writing goals

• Receive a daily prompt every weekday (20 prompts total)

• Stay accountable with a supportive & creative community (on WhatsApp)

• Participate in weekly hour-long workshops to gain new skills and learn writing techniques; every Monday 5-6PM EST (Google Meet)

• Gain confidence to share your work and receive feedback on stories

• Get inspired with weekly reading assignments

• Submit 1 longer pieces of work for editor feedback

• Tap into your inner voice, sense of creativity, and build your writer’s toolkit

If you have any questions, email me at simonespilka@gmail.com.

The Writing Ritual October

“Menorca's mystique and intrigue still call artists from near and far, who disappear into its rural fincas. In their indeliberate way, they are helping this sleepy isle attract a new set of wanderers.” — Condé Nast Traveler

10 years ago, my friend Liad gifted me a piece of travel advice: “The best plan is to change plans,” he said. This is how I ended up spending three weeks in Menorca, Spain, an unexpected but welcome plan.

I had traveled to the enchanted island with my family for a short vacation, but as our days together came to a close it was clear in my heart there was more for me to discover. Of course I was drawn to the near-perfect golden-sand beaches, the hidden coves, and the picturesque villages that dot the island, but it was mostly the slow sense of living that struck me. In a world that’s so consumed by doing more, Menorca offers something entirely the opposite; in Menorca, stillness is a virtue. 

I canceled my flight to Barcelona and found my way to a cheese finca where I would stay, a short but meaningful distance from Ciutadella, the island’s largest and most charming town. I had been put in touch with the owner, Jorge, via a Spanish friend, who agreed to host me while he was out of the country.

The farmhouse sat in the center of the finca, with three bedrooms and a patio looking out to raw nature and pastures filled with cattle. An innate sense of tranquility permeated everywhere, a quiet readily conducive to listening to oneself and writing. I called Jorge immediately to ask if I could extend, and for how long. It was available for 11 days, he said, and he would be pleased for me to make myself at home.

This is how I arrived at my self-guided writing retreat, a time and space where I was not beholden to any singular activity except for creativity An invitation to relax into myself, to decompress, to develop a writing ritual inspired by solitude and island life. 

To ensure I made the most of my time, while rejecting any pressure around output, I created guidelines for myself. I also mapped out specific goals related to my writing, plus steps that I could take throughout my stay to realize them. The daily itinerary was as follows:

Everything was flexible except for: 

—swimming in the Mediterranean every day (and also putting my entire head under water—a deeply healing and energizing practice)

—eating gelato every day 

—writing every day 

I allowed myself leniency because creativity doesn’t thrive in a box or a time schedule. It needs to breathe and ideas need time to marinate.

Over 11 days, I effectively developed a new writing ritual. Surprising myself, I found my best ideas in the evenings over solo dinners. Every night, I drove 10 minutes into town, found a local restaurant, ordered a beer and a sandwich, and wrote a poem. How simple in theory and practice, how nourishing for the soul. 

Of course my tranquil environment made it easier to drop in, tune in, and commit to myself. That’s why artist residencies exist — to take artists outside of their regular environments and give their minds permission to let go. Isolated time in nature specifically awakens dormant ideas that we can see much clearer when we leave behind the responsibilities that linger at home. 

For me, 11 days was the perfect amount of time to find inspiration, write, and feel that I had “achieved” what I was seeking. I have returned back to New York with a journal full of musings, a renewed vision for The Writing Ritual, and evermore curiosity to explore the world, word-by-word.

A self-guided writing or artist retreat is entirely in your hands, too. Here’s a few tips on creating your own:

—Start by finding a destination that speaks to you - there are so many mystical and languid places in nature where you settle in comfortably. Look for somewhere with limited distractions or activities (i.e. a city), as well as a place where you can meditate/stretch/do yoga/any other practices that help calm the nervous system and put you in deeper touch with yourself. (If you are looking for specific recommendations on destinations, please feel free to email me directly!) 

—Create an itinerary that makes you feel good in your body, in your heart, in your mind. Consider the elements that will help you fall in love with the creative process. It’s not magic but it is work. Map out a daily schedule—your personal ritual—from the time you wake up to the time you fall asleep. Allow room for flexibility but don’t ever skip your essentials, particularly if it’s a word count or a key part of your retreat intention. You want each day to feel both productive and fulfilling.

—Consider how spiritual connection can play a role in your retreat. Spirituality is such a powerful tool for rewiring our busy minds and relearning how to hear ourselves. 

—Bring the tools you will need to create, whether that’s a new journal, ample books in your native language, art supplies, incense, pens, etc. I also recommend going to a local market to stock your home with fresh produce, breads, coffee, tea, filtered water, or anything else you might need on hand. 

—And if you’re seeking additional guidance or community, stay tuned for The Writing Ritual Retreat 2024!

Solitude in Menorca filled me up and I am spilling over with inspiration. Now it’s your turn to dream your own self-guided artist retreat into existence. Take this framework and transform it into your own—and then let me know where you’re dreaming of! I’d love to hear from you. Bon voyage!