NB: IN 2024, I WILL BE TAKING A MUCH-NEEDED SABBATICAL. DATES ARE IN PLACE FOR 2025, and please note that the MORE group is now almost full.

2025 DATES
Travel: ferries & bus across Mull will by now be on their summer timetable

‘THE STILL CENTRE’ (WAS THE ‘MORE’ GROUP) 2025
SATURDAY 29th March (evening) – SATURDAY 5th April (after breakfast)
WOMEN ONLY. The group is for returners and newcomers alike and is fairly divergent in participants’ writing interests and experience. It will include poetry and prose. Please note that in 2025 this will be conducted in a more relaxed and spacious spirit of genuine retreat; a ‘pause’ from your normal life, where a sense of depth and true refreshment will be paramount. We will be looking at words to question, nourish, reflect and deepen our lives. We’ll also make time for silence and some solitude. (See the Opening Up Space group in 2019, below; this will be a blend of the usual MORE group and the SPACE group.) Provisionally full (waiting list).

CORE GROUP 2025
TUESDAY 8th (evening) – TUESDAY 15th April (after breakfast)
Poetry, mixed gender, experienced writers. I am now open to new applicants if you are an experienced and preferably published poet (a magazine counts), and stay abreast of contemporary poetry. If you’d like to join us, please tell me a little about yourself and your interests. (I’m more likely to accept people with whom I’ve worked before, or whose work I know.) The established group is warm and welcoming.

2023 participants:

‘I can’t express how much the week on Iona has affected me, but I know I’ll keep thinking and writing about it for a very long time. I summed it up in my notebook during one of the morning sessions: ‘This trip is one of the best times of my entire life’.’ (HH)

‘…a huge thank you for that extraordinary week on Iona. I don’t know how to express what I feel about it! I keep reaching for words and failing to find the right ones, but it’s something like this…

‘It was a beautiful experience: the physical loveliness of the place, the warmth of the group, the precious silence of our morning meetings. And I loved having such a safe and protected space to try out and share words, and the paths by which you led us to poetry; couldn’t have hoped for a more inspired and loving guide: I’m going to cherish the memory of the Nunnery and the beach and the creative magic you brought to those places for a very long time.

‘I’ve been left with a feeling of well being, peace and a sense of the sacredness of words; a real balm for the depression and cynicism of recent times. A feeling of having found and tapped a well that I’d lost, having reconnected with something essential… I am feeling better in myself, and I’m so so grateful for that.’ (TM)

*
The renowned ISLANDS OF THE HEART more-than-writing retreat on the Isle of Iona: 2023 was my 23rd year (much feedback here; scroll down). Listed by The Telegraph in June 2019 as one of the world’s (ten) best writing holidays!

You can read a description of the Argyll Hotel, and a review of my friend & erstwhile co-tutor Kenneth Steven’s retreat at the Argyll, and of my own, here. Also see a brief introduction to the ISLE OF IONA: IONA a-special-place GS

Clicking on this link will take you to 3 short recordings of my Iona poems (from my collection A Trick of the Light)

DETAILS

Each week is 6 days, 7 nights.

IMPORTANT: If you are intending to book on the Iona retreats, please ensure you’ve read ‘The Small Print’ 1 & 2, below. Please also note that I’ve always recommended travel insurance. Any bookings made assume you have agreed to the terms & conditions laid out in the ‘small print’. Also please read the terms & conditions here.

‘…the most luminous week of my life…’ (VF)

‘It was transformational. I hadn’t imagined that this week could be so powerful. I think it was the best week of my life. I’ll be back next year.’ (BK)

‘It was an extraordinary week… the memories keep turning up in my dreams and at unexpected times in the day. Not just memories either, but whole other experiences – which may have happened and I glossed over. I don’t know. But it’s rather exhilarating to find new layers of sensing Iona and [the] wonderful women…‘ (Caroline H, More group autumn 2021)

Argyll Hotel
Isle of Iona
Argyllshire
PA76 6SJ
Scotland

01681 700334
reception@argyllhoteliona.co.uk

And we like migrant birds blown in to here
Where all our stories meet…

My recent collection of poems from the many years I’ve visited Iona, A Trick of the Light, is available from the link, or from me. The book will give you a sense of the island, and possibly a sense of what to expect in relation to the retreat.

*

‘It’s a real gift that you have, to offer that extraordinary space to explore and create.’ (Newcomer Sept 2019)

An island is both a physical point in space and metaphorically a place where we might bring ourselves home. This particular island is rather unique: Iona is one of those places where, as the Celts describe it, the veil between ‘this’ world and the Otherworld is thin. Now seen as remote, once Iona would have been at the heart of Atlantic seafaring peoples’ voyages, and has probably been a place of pilgrimage for 1000s of years. Known as sacred for millennia, Iona was supposedly a Druidic teaching centre before the arrival of Celtic Christianity.

Here, surrounded by the seas that both connect us and keep us apart, is a good place to start the quest for the heart. We are brought here, somehow, with some kind of deep longing, or yearning, often for we know not what; ‘hiraeth’, the Welsh call it; ‘cianalas’ in Scottish Gaelic. We come together in a kind of spirit of pilgrimage.

We are blessed also to witness gannets and oystercatchers, eider duck and puffins in the summer, wild geese, an occasional sea or golden eagle, perhaps a corncrake or hen harrier, and frequently seals and dolphins, all of which make this week somewhat spectacular.

All of this is palpable on this little speck of dust in the vast Atlantic ocean which draws to it many thousands of people from all over the world each year.

For nine years from 2001 I led a weeklong retreat on Iona with my friend, fellow author and poet Kenneth Steven. The many people who have attended (from five continents and many countries), some of whom return every year, know what a unique, creative, therapeutic and frequently life-changing experience these days offer.

In 2009 I launched the Iona event as a solo adventure for me. I changed the name from ‘Into Blue Silence’ to ‘Islands of the Heart*’, but kept the spirit of our shared venture: the ambience and format; the wonderful Argyll Hotel, right on the water; the walks; the warm gatherings; the workshops, discussions, talks, poems and readings; the walk to one of the beaches (with some of the oldest bedrock in the world) gathering silence, writings, and the voices of the air and ocean, plus for those who want it a solo journey to the heart of the labyrinth; looking for seals; the optional boat trip to Staffa (weather permitting). The green stones, Iona serpentine at St Columba’s Bay, have assumed mythical and talismanic proportions.

The sacred Isle of Iona is and always has been a place to bring your stories and poems, your joys and sorrows, dreams and memories, longings and search for belonging, your laughter and your open heart. Central to these weeks, in addition to the opening of creativity, is the deepening of the connection between inner and outer landscapes, remembering the ancient and abiding web of relationship with the other-than-human that holds and sustains us all. Being present in the continually-moving unfolding of the stories of earth, sea, sky, the edges between them, and the many other species with whom we share this island – and planet – helps to inspire memory, tales, poetry and a profound sense of interconnectedness. Inevitably, we will become more aware of how we live our lives and what really matters; many people find this process both exhilarating and healing.

Although this is not ‘in your face’ and is not affiliated to any one path, there is a psychospiritual dimension to the week, so you need to be comfortable with that. I’m passionate about consciousness and, as the Buddha said, ‘waking up’. (You will write, you will go deep, you will laugh, you may weep. You will come away with new soul-friends.)

In 2019 I launched the ‘Opening Up Space’ group. The week seemed particularly profound, with a very diverse group of people – all women – who came to trust each other very quickly. This week was a mix of poetry & prose, & the emphasis was on a gentle resting in the moment, with much attentiveness to a kind of spiritual restoration of the heart & its connections, human & other-than-human, & of soul-alignment with a personal sense of purpose & meaning. Obviously, we were also writing – for reflection, for healing, for creative expression. This week will be offered again in the future.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW:
This is more than ‘simply’ a creative writing retreat. You probably won’t finish – or even start – your novel. You will, however, probably go home with a full notebook and many ideas that will continue to unfold over months. You will likely also go home with an indefinable but profound sense of uplift and deep nurturing. We use writing as a means of creative expression, but also as reflective practice, for the imaginal and experiential exploring of our edges, for self-knowledge and awareness of our interrelationships with each other, with sea, land (Iona’s bedrock is some of the oldest on the planet), wildlife, the elements, soul and the numinous. The work we do together is sacred work. We spend time both indoors and out-. Also, some walking is an integral part of the course; some sessions are built around a walk.

So the week is holistic and intensive and we work at some depth. People often find the week to be deeply transformative and healing as well as richly creative, but it can also be quite emotionally demanding: the island has a way of first ‘scouring’ you, then offering deep restoration of the heart.

The groups are invariably warm, trusting and supportive. The group cohesion, dynamic and process depend on a commitment to attending all the morning and evening sessions (see SMALL PRINT 2 below).

Put off yet? If not, you might want to scroll down for all the practical info. There’s also some of the recent feedback; there’s more here.

ALL THE PRACTICAL STUFF
The first thing is PLEASE BE SURE TO BOOK WITH ME FIRST, or you may find that you’ve a room on the island but no course to go to, as the places are reserved very quickly!

THEN find your room: the Argyll Hotel holds rooms as a block booking for me so on the website it might say ‘full’, but telephone or email them (ask for Katy) and say you’re attending my course. If you possibly can, stay in the hotel – it makes a big difference to your experience of the course.

Accommodation
We keep prices as low as we can, and usually the hotel holds the previous year’s prices for my groups. You book the course through me and pay my fee, but you need to book and pay for the travel and accommodation separately. Choose a place to stay to suit your budget:

• A tent for the hardy, 15–20 minutes’ walk (basic farm camping, showers and loo, tent/sleeping bag/roll mat all available to hire if necessary, was £8 a night in 2021) (01681 700112) 
• The wonderful Lagandorain eco-hostel, also a 20+-minute walk in the opposite direction – ‘the best eco-hostel in Scotland’ (Green Tourism awards); it also offers a secluded shepherd’s hut. NB 2021: this has now changed to provide different, beautiful, self-catering accommodation. Click HERE (Both this and the above option might provide a corncrake experience!)
  
• The local B&B Ardoran House comes well-recommended if the Argyll is full (5 minutes’ walk). 
• Margaret MacDonald’s B&B also comes well-recommended: 10 minutes’ walk 
• 3-bedroom self-catering cottage close to the machair & the Bay at the Back of the Ocean (20ish minutes’ walk): Jamie Dods, dodsjamie818@googlemail.com
• NEW IN 2018: Iona Pods 
• The St Columba Hotel is 5 minutes’ walk away.

Of course, nothing will beat the Argyll Hotel. The rate includes a generous breakfast. Bear in mind that you’ll cut the room cost in half if you share with another participant, friend or partner.

If you choose the hotel, I’d advise very early booking. 01681 700334. reception@argyllhoteliona.co.uk

The lovely owners are willing to negotiate timing of payments. The staff will tell you about it all (Katy usually deals with room bookings for my course).

See http://www.argyllhoteliona.co.uk and under their ‘essentials’ button you’ll find a link to other island accommodation.

Meals
We’ll be at the Argyll for all the indoor sessions (morning, late afternoon, and evening) and we all share dinner at the hotel, as a group. We think you can eat well, on the fine, imaginative, mostly locally-grown and as much as possible organic Argyll fare, for around £28–30 per day (including simple lunch but excluding drinks and desserts), assuming you have breakfast wherever you’re staying (a plentiful breakfast is included in the rate at the Argyll). Frugal people can of course probably improve on that! The hotel is adept at catering for vegan and gluten-free diets as well as fish- and meat-eaters. Tom the chef is a star. There are various other island options for inexpensive lunches, in addition to the Argyll.

By the way, you don’t need to book a table for dinner, as it says on the Argyll’s website, if you’re coming on the course – I do a block booking.

wild geese at the north end (photo Caroline Harmsworth)

Costs, bookings & small print
Fee
This is in two parts: my fee, and the accommodation. My fee for 2025 is £445. NB I will pencil your name in but will not take this as a firm booking until you’ve paid a deposit of £200 (NOTE THAT THIS IS NON-REFUNDABLE & NON-TRANSFERABLE). The balance of £245 is due by January 31st 2025 (instalments possible); but see below; your booking is taken as agreement to the terms and conditions in ‘the small print’ (in red).

Booking
If you haven’t worked with me before, on applying please tell me just a little about yourself and why you want to join us. The work goes deep, and the group dynamic depends on creating a safe and trusting ambience very quickly, so it helps to know a little about the participants.

I need the non-refundable deposit of £200 (2025) with your booking. Please contact me as below. roselle.l.angwin[at]gmail[dot]com OR roselle[at]fire-in-the-head[dot]co[dot]uk

Prices do not include the optional boat trip to Staffa (‘Staffa Trips’ on Iolaire), which is around £40 – and it’s more than worth it. You will probably see seals, and you may see puffins. Sometimes there are dolphins; always many seabirds. Our skipper is knowledgeable about the history, prehistory, wildlife and general natural history and geology etc. You also have an hour+ on Staffa itself.

You will need to make your own travel arrangements: see below.

The small print 1
PLEASE READ THIS VERY CAREFULLY
It’s advisable to book this and your accommodation asap, as the course fills fast and I often turn people away. I keep my own fee as low as I can, but I also need to book the hotel so am myself committed and ask that you too commit if I hold you a place.

In signing up you are agreeing to my policy of non-refundable & non-transferable deposits unless for any reason (other than COVID) I have to cancel, in which case see the link in the paragraph below this. If you have unavoidably to cancel, I will refund or transfer the balance (but not the deposit) minus £50 for admin and re-advertising costs, as long as the cancellation occurs before the end of January 2025. After that, I’m afraid no refund or transfer is possible.

The last few years this course has consistently had a waiting list over and above the 15 (maximum) participants I can accommodate. I know that life can sometimes get in the way of the best plans, but despite a waiting list late cancellations can make it hard to refill your place. This means that I cannot make exceptions. See here for general terms & conditions.

Small print 2
Also you need to know, especially if you’re staying any distance away from the Argyll, that this is a structured retreat, and because of the high levels of trust and intimacy we create, it’s important that you plan to attend both morning and evening sessions, including dinner in the hotel (obviously emergencies excepted). Afternoon sharing-work sessions, and any trips out (other than to St Columba’s Bay midweek), e.g. to Staffa, are optional, so if you like space and downtime in between sessions, the afternoons can accommodate that need for free time.

Timing

The course is six days, seven nights, and starts with dinner at 7pm and a brief introductory session on the first evening. Participants leave after breakfast on the final given date, after our final celebration the evening before. You do need to attend the whole course.

Travel
Flights or trains to Glasgow (I personally recommend the train whenever possible for two reasons: one, the environmental – walking lightly on this earth is part of the ethos of Fire in the Head; and two, the spirit of pilgrimage is best honoured by including time for the soul to keep up with the body).

Then take the West Highland Line to Oban (beware that the train often splits at Crianlarich for Fort William!). I like to do this in daylight because travelling along Loch Lomond and past the castle ruins on Loch Awe is a treat.

There is then the ferry sailing to Craignure on Mull (Caledonian MacBrayne, or ‘Calmac’); a bus journey (the buses normally tie in with some of the ferries) across Mull to Fionnphort; finally the ten-minute ferry crossing to Iona. (The Argyll Hotel is visible in front of you to the right.)

TIMING FOR TRAVEL
Note that the last ferry from Mull to Iona is just after 6pm usually at this time of year; please check with Caledonian MacBrayne times of crossings from Oban to Craignure on Mull in order to take the bus to get you to the Iona ferry at Fionnphort in time for the evening course opening. Usually you can assume that if you get the 4pm-ish ferry from Oban to Mull (Craignure), and catch the bus, you’ll make that last ferry. (NB It does usually wait for the last bus.) Better to catch the 12 noon (ish – it changes and I haven’t kept up) or 2pm (ish) sailing, but do check bus timetables with West Coast Motors coach company. There should be a bus to meet some of those Oban ferries, and to get you to Fionnphort in time for the last Iona crossing, and they generally wait for each other (within reason).

You don’t need to book the small ferry from Fionnphort to Iona, nor vice versa, nor the bus. You DO need to book the ferries from Oban to Craignure and v v.

NB if you’re staying anywhere other than the Argyll you will need to arrive earlier, as there won’t be time to get there and back before the evening gathering if you come on the last ferry.

RETURNING: most people leave before 10am on the last day. Do check the Craignure to Oban sailings, and the buses, as you may need to leave earlier if you want to make connections. It all works out easily, the hotel is helpful, and you don’t need to worry about timings and bookings for the small ferry from Iona, as long as you’ve checked bus times and know what time you need to arrive for the Craignure to Oban ferry.

This all sounds complicated but it’s straightforward, in fact.

NB: Because any kind of long distance travel that is not on foot, by bicycle or horseback is fuel-hungry and emissions-heavy, I personally have chosen not to fly, and not to offer courses anywhere other than in Europe. Obviously I want you to come to these weeks! – but if you too feel you’d like to compensate, you can help offset, at least in a small way, the planet-costs by planting trees. See this page [bottom] for some links.

Clothing
In April we’ve usually been lucky with the weather: mostly fine bright days (and 24 hours of dramatic and rare snow in 2016). But it can be chilly; there’s often a wind, and we have to allow for stormy weather. We do quite a lot of walking, too, so warm clothing, waterproofs, windproofs, gloves and scarves and walking boots are musts.

And
The bedrock of the weeks is, loosely, poetry, with elements of creative prose-writing, memoir, reflection, journalling and experiential writing. However, the Core Group consists of experienced poets and poetry is very much our focus; the More Group is a mix of old hands and newcomers, experienced writers and novices. It offers a mix of poetry and prose. Group 3 (next one tba) puts the emphasis more on the retreat aspect, rooted as always in writing for exploration and expression. None of the weeks is about being ‘good at’ something, but about exploring words, their possibilities for connection, their richness, their edges and the silence between them.

Iona: The Glass-Blue Day

The way sky inhabits the creases
smears colour that steals your breath

The sand so pale it might be grains of light

The big Hebridean night that opens its arms
and drops its creel of stars

towards our upturned faces

(Roselle Angwin)

~~~

And finally: you can find out more about Kenneth Steven, who co-founded this retreat week with me 23 years ago now, and who, with his partner photographer Kristina Hayward, offers a week with a Celtic Christianity emphasis on the island, and his books here.

FEEDBACK
There is a great deal of feedback on the Iona groups. Here’s some; there are many more, and more recent, testimonials on the ‘What They Say’ page.

‘I am slowly coming down from the Iona high… I was unbelievably happy to be back with Islands of the Heart, and what a privilege to develop such warm and lasting friendships from the course…Thank you for your unfailing inspiration and for your skill in holding us together as individuals and a group, in both our fine and our squally weather; and for being your dear and lovely self.’
(Participant on Islands of the Heart, Iona, 2015)

‘A huge thank you for another exhilarating, fulfilling week on Iona… What is so special is the way you bring all of us likeminded (mostly) but diverse individuals and inspire such a tangible sense of acceptance, empathy and belonging. I arrive home feeling affirmed both by the group and myself; feeling that things are really possible. It’s a community quite unlike I experience anywhere else… an avalanche of energy pouring forth from you, the group, the place.’
(Participant on Islands of the Heart, Iona, 2015)

‘Heartfelt thanks to you for a spectacularly inspiring week.’
(Participant on Islands of the Heart, Iona, 2015)

‘…you must know how much I enjoyed the week and how much I valued your inspired input – you’re an absolute star and everyone says so! What you have to offer is completely unique – that really hit home when I was sitting around in Oban yesterday reflecting on the Iona “experience”. You’re always so clever at opening the lock gates without causing an overwhelming gush of self-indulgence. The week was invaluable to me and has sparked lots of little epiphanies, not to mention quite a few pages of emerging ideas… Yesterday in Oban, I was still writing and looking out at the sparkling sea and those lumpy crags, already wishing to be back there in Iona… So – again – a hundred thanks for masterminding such a wonderful experience with so many good (in every sense!) people.’ (Participant on Islands of the Heart, Iona, 2015)

‘Thank you for a stimulating and fulfilling [six] days.  The retreat gave me just what I wanted and some things I did not know I wanted! … Giles Fraser’s piece in The Guardian last Saturday focused on the theme “the arts should be one of the places to challenge the idea that our political and financial masters have a monopoly on what counts as established reality… something we used to call vision, a sense that the world could be otherwise…”  On Iona I was reminded of a much wider world where creativity flourishes.  A salutary reminder. Thank you.’
(Participant on Islands of the Heart, Iona, 2015)

‘I just wanted to say how profoundly happy and grateful I am to be have been part of the Iona retreat in 2015. What a supportive, stimulating, transformative environment you created for us all. Can’t wait until 2016!  I know that the effects are still percolating, and I’ve continued to have insights and to enjoy the opened floodgate of new writing. Thank you!’
(Participant on Islands of the Heart, Iona, 2015)

‘[A] terrific week, at the time terrifying and challenging… The notion that we are all engaged in a pilgrimage is one that I find obscurely moving and meaningful. I have come to realise that I should be desperately sad not to be there next year, so please can I ask to join the Iona group again in 2016? So from me, many heartfelt thanks for – well, I’m not quite sure what for! For a wonderful week, of course, but also for a seed set growing, a piece of grit slipped into the oyster, feet encouraged, driven, even, to set out on a journey to a destination I can’t foresee.‘
(Participant on Islands of the Heart, Iona, 2015)

‘This might seem a bit out of the blue to you but… I just want to express my thanks to you for all you do and especially how you hold the space in Iona. I really only got the slightest handle on poetry writing on my first retreat with you. I am so full of gratitude. Not quite sure how you do it, but thank you.’
(October 2018 from a now-regular participant on the ‘newcomers & returners’ group on Iona, who’s just had her first collection published)

‘Congratulations on the Telegraph*! But of course you are in the top 1!’
(June 2019 from someone who joins us from Canada each year)
* The Telegraph listed this course as one of the world’s ten best creative writing holidays

You’ll find more, plus other general course feedback here.

~~~

* This retreat, ISLANDS OF THE HEART, 23 years’ old now in 2023, is my ‘flagship’ course, at the heart of my work. Participants come from all over the world.

As far as I know, the title is my creation and has been associated with my course on Iona for a long time. It has come to my attention that someone else has used this title, and in relation to Iona, and other details, in a book without my permission. I’ve had to face high levels of unacknowledged appropriation of ideas, content and phrases from my work over the last few years, and this has caused some confusion in course participants and quite a lot of distress for me. 

No one other than my original co-tutor, Ken Steven, has ever been involved with the delivery of this course.