Coming Home to Writing at Camp Bickell

I was nervous the night before going to my first writing retreat.  The Harvest Moon Retreat Located at Camp Bickell (just outside of Iroquois Falls) it was for the weekend of October 2 to 4, 2026.  What if everyone was stuck up, unfriendly, didn’t like me.  I wanted to cancel.  Being an introvert by nature the prospect of a weekend with a bunch of strangers terrified me.  But I had made the commitment not only to myself but to my friend Michelle who offered to drive.  It was too late to back out now.

So, I packed (clothes) and packed (bedding) and packed (writing materials).  I had three bags with me, worried that I was packing too much.  I imagined everyone else being able to pack everything in one bag.  Thankfully, when Michelle came to pick me up, she had just as much “stuff” as I did.

One of my bags was my writing kit.  It included everything I thought I might need:

·       Laptop, mouse, earphones

·       Printed copy of the memoir in a binder

·       Highlighters, erasable pens in multiple colours

·       Index cards in multiple colours, index card holder

·       Post-it notes in varying sizes of cats, unicorns, llamas, dinosaurs, more cats

·       New A5 notebook, mini notebook that could fit in my pocket

Michelle and I were the first participants to arrive Friday morning.  The author Terry Fallis was already there, and not having a good understanding of who he was I had the nerve to ask which book of his I should read.  I never would have done this after his presentation.  He became larger than life and I couldn’t believe he was there talking to us!  But I did ask him.  He suggested his first book Best Laid Plans.  I said “No, no. The book you love.  The book as an author you would suggest.”  “Up and Down” he said without much hesitation.  I took out the ebook from my library and was a quarter of the way through by the end of the weekend.  I’m loving this book!  And I love Terry Fallis, as an author, presenter, person.  He was approachable, friendly, full of great suggestions and tips.

Once everyone arrived, around twenty of us, we were given a tour of Camp Bickell.  Walking by the water along one of the paths we came upon a yellow flipflop floating in the reeds.  Someone (may have been me but can’t remember) said we should write about how that yellow flipflop came to be there.  I became obsessed with this idea.  Saturday I was so inspired that during a dedicated writing time I wrote up the story.  I was telling my friend Sarah about this, and she said that we had to get the yellow flipflop for when I told the story.  Sarah is so fun, outgoing, brave.  She was all prepared to go into the freezing water to get the flipflop for me.  Thankfully she was able to grab it with a long stick without having to go into the water.

That night we had our second fire.  When everyone had arrived, I told my story of Louisa and her yellow flipflops.  The end of the story goes “I come back every year… but all I ever find is another floating flipflop,” and then I whipped out the shoe.  I was so happy to hear everyone laughing when I did that.

There is so much to cover, but I don’t want to have a five-thousand-word blog.  There was:

·       Dedicated writing time

·       Fires both nights, with guitar, fiddle and flute playing with sing-alongs

·       Amazing food, including fresh sour dough bread, homemade soups, and treats galore

·       Opportunities to share our writing

·       More presentations by:

o   Karen Lea Armstrong (Drownproofing)

o   Michael Buhler (Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters)

o   Dave Carroll (United Breaks Guitars)

o   Brit Griffin (The Wintermen)

o   Graham MacLachlan (J.P. Bickell: The Life, the Leafs, and the Legacy)

o   Paul Toffanello (The Popchuck Chronicles)

Plus, there was all the bonding, the connections with other writers.  I had spoken to everyone by the end of the weekend and though there was twenty of us it felt like an intimate group.  I was so inspired by everyone.  All were unique in their own way.  The group ran the gamut from teenagers to retired persons, established writers to those yet to pick up the pen.  Everyone had their story and everyone was a muse to me.

Even more!  There was laughter, sunshine, glow sticks, snacks, perfect sentences, Camp Bickell hoodies, swimming, storytelling, coffee, nature, big ideas, rain, inspiration.

Thank you to Paul and Dave for creating and organizing this writing retreat.  They did such an amazing job, from the communications to the swag bag to the presenters to their approachability.  Words escape me to express how much this weekend meant to me.

Thank you to Graham, the director of Camp Bickell, and all the staff who were there.  I loved hearing all the stories of the Camp and of J.P. Bickell.  Everyone made us feel welcome, at home, and well fed.

Here’s to having another Harvest Moon writer’s retreat in 2027, when I can come home to my writing again.