ABSTRACT

Writing experiences have a crucial role in the wellbeing of academics and PhD researchers and this paper seeks to extend a body of work on writing retreats, by exploring them from a wellbeing perspective. Drawing from literature on wellbeing and the practical experience of developing and delivering writing retreats, it highlights wellbeing outcomes that arise as people write together and engage in social and physical activities away from the university. A sense of wellbeing is developed through the combination of social, physical and sharing activities, which create feelings of confidence, safety and belonging, and a sense of being calm, focused and clear-headed. These states contribute to the writing task, but more importantly can support a general sense of being well. The conclusions draw attention to the importance of non-writing aspects of writing retreats and their role in enhancing peoples’ broader sense of wellbeing. The challenge going forward is how to translate these subjective, personal and relational wellbeing benefits back in to university life. It is difficult to envision how writing retreats might have comprehensive wellbeing impacts unless they are integrated into wider strategic initiatives which start to tackle some of the wider causes of ill-being in HE.

摘要

写作经验对学者和博士研究人员的福祉起着至关重要的作用，本文试图通过从福祉的角度对其进行探索来扩展有关写作静修的一系列工作。它借鉴了有关幸福感的文献以及开发和提供写作静修的实践经验，突出了人们一起写作以及远离大学进行社交和体育活动时产生的幸福感。幸福感是通过社交活动、体育活动和分享活动的结合而发展起来的，这些活动创造了自信、安全和归属感，以及平静、专注和清醒的感觉。这些状态有助于写作任务，但更重要的是可以支持总体感觉良好。结论提请注意写作静修的非写作方面的重要性及其在增强人们更广泛的幸福感方面的作用。未来的挑战是如何将这些主观的、个人的和关系的幸福感转化为大学生活。除非将写作静修纳入更广泛的战略举措，开始解决高等教育中一些更广泛的不健康原因，否则很难想象写作静修会如何产生全面的福祉影响。