Witness and Wildness with Tishani Doshi
August 11, 2027 to August 15, 2027
Witness and Wildness: Poetry in the Himalayas
Day One: Eco-poetics
Morning walk: Solo, with notebook. Participants instructed to write impressionistic notes of the landscape they find themselves in. Then, try to hone in on one particular thing—a tree, object, sound, smell, stay with it, and try to find a connection from that outer thing to some emotion inside you.
Workshop session: Introduce eco-poetics, look at examples of Tamil Sangam poetry, at notions of inner and outer, making connections with landscape. Share backgrounds of our respective “thinnais” or landscapes – create our own ecomaps. From these ecomaps, write 2 or 3 short lyric poems in the mode of the Sangam poets.
Journal prompt: Write about a landscape from your childhood, it doesn’t need to be a place necessarily, but a season in a place. Make as detailed as possible. Who were you in that landscape, what were you waiting for? Collective poem: Each participant contributes an opening line to a shared poem that will accumulate across three days.
Day Two: Love/Praise
Morning walk: In pairs this time. Each pair given a prompt. maybe find something that is dying and something that is persisting, or something that looks like it belongs to a creature—a burrow, or nest. Again, impressionistic writing but with as much detail as possible.
Workshop session: Gather to talk about our walks. Focus on love as a radical and activating force in poetry. We’ll look at Neruda’s odes to various ordinary objects (ode to tomatoes, ode to socks etc). Everyone will write a praise poem of extraordinary love to an ordinary object.
Journal prompt: What do you love that you are afraid of losing? Collective poem continues: Each participant adds a line in response to someone else’s opening line from Day One.
Day Three: Rage
Morning walk: Solo again. This time, we look at things in the landscape that are inciting a quality of rage. Plastic, say, or unruly building, things that are damaging the landscape and its inhabitants.
Workshop session: Gather to talk about our walks. Rage as a craft question. How can we shape fury into form without losing its heat or becoming didactic. Discussion of the curse poem, the protest lyric. Look at poems by Audre Lorde, Mahmoud Darwish, June Jordan. Try to write a poem that holds love and rage.
Journal prompt: What have you witnessed over these three days that you cannot be silent about. Anger toward place, person, loss, injustice. Try to create images, rather than to just rant.
Collective poem: Final contributions…..
Final evening reading: Each participant selects one piece from the three days that they’d like to read. And then we’ll share the collective poem.
Early Bird Price
Regular Price
INR 48000 + GST- Taxes Extra
- Early Bird ends July 27, 2027
- Strict Zero-Discount Policy
- Accommodation on twin-sharing basis
- Early Bird (single occupancy) INR 63000 + GST
- Regular price (single occupancy)
INR 69000 + GST
About the Instructor
Tishani Doshi
Tishani Doshi publishes poetry, fiction and essays. For fifteen years she worked as the lead dancer of the Chandralekha company in Madras, India, performing on stages all across the world, and as such, the body has been a central preoccupation in her work—a vehicle to explore gender, violence, sexuality and power, but also as an agent of renewal and transformation. Since her debut, Countries of the Body, which won the Forward Prize for best first collection (2006), she has sought to find joineries between the lyric and the political. Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods (2017) headlined the All About Women Festival at the Sydney Opera House and was shortlisted for a Ted Hughes Award. Her novels, The Pleasure Seekers (2010) and Small Days and Nights (2019), have been shortlisted for the Hindu Fiction Prize, Tata Fiction Award and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. A God at the Door, her most recent collection of poems, was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize 2021. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Associate Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at New York University, Abu Dhabi.
Travel & Stay
The Himalayan Writing Retreat is built for writing and learning. We are rated 5-star on Google and Facebook.
Once here, you will be sharing a room with a fellow participant (unless we’ve confirmed a single). All essentials like food, hot water, towels etc. are provided. No hidden costs.
It can snow in winter. Weather can vary and the weather chart of Mukteshwar (12 km from the retreat) is here. A pair of sturdy walking shoes, some rain protection and an extra layer or two are always a good idea.
Our rooms are built to let nature in and inspire you. To see pictures of the rooms click here . To see pictures of the writing spaces click here.
Depending upon where you travel in from, you can reach us by road, train or air. Even if flying or taking a train, the final stretch is a drive, and the last 150 metres is a walk.
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By Road
The retreat is a 370 km/9 hours drive from Delhi. If driving, we recommend you leave early. Note that parking at the retreat is on the road – we do not have any private parking. We have limited driver accommodation, so please check in advance.
Overnight Volvo buses ply between Haldwani and Delhi, the more reliable of which are government operated. You con book those here. Private Volvos and Sleeper buses also ply between Delhi and Haldwani, which you can book on redbus. Make sure you pick a bus with a high (4+) rating.
By Train
There are three trains a day from Delhi to Kathgodam, the nearest train station. Some others also come in from Kolkata, Lucknow and Dehradun. From Delhi, Ranikhet Express is a convenient overnight train both ways, but finding tickets can be difficult.
Most people prefer to take the Kathgodam Shatabdi (Delhi dep: 6.20 AM, Kathgodam Arr: 11.40 AM). A cab from Kathgodam to Satkhol takes about 2.5 hrs / Rs. 2200 (more for a big car). Cabs are often shared by participants.
By Air
There are daily flights from Delhi to Pantnagar. A cab from Pantnagar to Satkhol takes about 3.5 hr / Approx INR 4K.
There are direct flights from Mumbai and Bangalore to Bareilly 3-4 days a week. Satkhol is a 5hr / INR 5.5k cab ride from Bareilly. (More for a big car). Cabs are often shared by participants.
FAQs
- Why should I choose HWR Workshops?
- Personal Attention: We don’t take more than 10 students in a class. You get a lot of personal attention and feedback. No classrooms of 20-30 people or one-way pre-recorded videos here.
- Class Quality: For most courses, we filter our participants. You can’t just pay and sign up. We need to see a writing sample (in our application form) to ensure the class is of a uniform standard.
- Quality of Faculty: No lightweights here. Many of our faculty are award-winners. All are experts and great teachers. We don’t settle for average.
- A Decade’s Experience:The Himalayan Writing Retreat was founded in 2016. we’ve been doing teaching programs for writers for ten years. we;ve hosted over 1000 people, and have yet to have an unhappy participant. It shows up in everything we do.
- Feedback scores: Across courses, we are rated 4.9/5, or higher. You can read our reviews HERE.
- Do I get a certificate of participation?
Yes, certificates are available on request.
- Any discounts for students / other categories?
At the Himalayan Writing Retreat, we follow a strict No-Discount policy.
- Is the workshop fee refundable?
Our cancellation policy is as follows:
Online Writing Workshop:
* 95% refund if cancellation 2 weeks before the event start date
* 50% refund if cancellation one week before the start date
* No refund if cancellation less than one week before the start date.
Workshops in the Himalayas (INR Denominated) :
* 95% refund if cancellation 4 weeks before the event start date
* 50% refund if cancellation two weeks before the start date
* 0% refund if cancellation less than two weeks before the start date.
- Is the Himalayan Writing Retreat a business or an NGO?
The Himalayan Writing Retreat is a social enterprise. It works closely and actively to support the unique and precious Chirag School. On average, HWR raises INR 8 Lakhs every year to support the Chirag School.
Have more questions?
Feel free to write to us at:
info@himalayanwritingretreat.com
Or connect with us at
+91 73035 16665
(Call | WA | Signal)
Cancellation Policy for Physical Courses
- 95% refund if cancellation 4 weeks before event start date.
- 50% refund if cancellation 2 weeks before the start date.
- 0% refund if cancellation is less than 2 weeks before start date.