• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Anna S. E. Lundberg

Coach, Speaker, Writer

  • About
  • Work with me
    • Coaching
    • Speaking
    • Writing
  • Contact
  • One Step Outside

Writing course on Skyros: Two weeks on the island of poets

22 April, 2014 By Anna S E Lundberg 2 Comments

Having written about my writing course at The Grange on the Isle of Wight last week, I couldn’t help but think back to my course on the Greek island of Skyros in 2010, with The Grange’s sister organisation.

Skyros is a fabulous setting for a writing holiday. The characters from its story include Achilles, who spent time there before the Trojan war; Theseus, who fell to his death there years after his encounter with Ariadne and the Minotaur; King Lycomedes, whose palace was later rebuilt by the Byzantines and the Venetians; all the way through to Rupert Brooke, who is buried in an olive grove in that “corner of a foreign field that is forever England”.

My own journey to Skyros began in Athens, where I shared a room with Sofia, a multilingual girl of Russian/German origins, about to start her undergraduate studies at Cambridge.

We had just one day in Athens, before continuing on by bus and ferry to Skyros, which lies about 60km off the mainland.

Acropolis, Athens, Greece
It’s so hard to imagine those pillars in the gaudy colours that would have covered them at the height of ancient Greek power…
In front of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Athens
Behind me, you can see the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, built in 161 AD and still used as a venue today for events like the Athens festival
Acropolis, 1988
I was glad the weather was better than it had been back in 1988…

The course itself was at The Writers’ Lab, and I had found it thanks to its having been named as number one in The Guardian’s list of the five best writing holidays. Our teacher was Allegra Taylor, whose approach was incredibly open and encouraging, so that the focus was on writing freely and sharing with the group rather than on technique and critique. The group, as ever on a writing course, was very diverse. I’m still in contact with Sarah-Helena, a Swedish guitar-playing yogini, and Denise, who’s currently working on her first novel.

View across Skyros village
Skyros Centre is located in Skyros village, built high up on the island as a defence against marauding pirates
Skyros village
We stayed in little houses and apartments, mine with a rooftop balcony where I spent the afternoons sunbathing between course sessions
Blackboard with programme
The daily programme included course sessions in the morning and afternoon, interspersed with a visit to a local museum, music and jewellery workshops, and excursions to other parts of the island
Yoga mats
For the first time in my life, I stuck to the regular schedule of yoga every morning before breakfast
Restaurant terrace on Skyros
One of our course locations, a restaurant on the beach. Not too shabby…
Skyrian horses
We visited a project for the Skyrian horse, a rare and ancient breed of small-bodied horses that are otherwise facing extinction
Atsitsa Bay
We had a particularly memorable evening over at Atsitsa Bay, the other course location on the island, where we danced late into the night
Skyros harbour
Our last view of Skyros as we left by boat on our final morning. Hard to say goodbye…

When I left, I had a notebook full of short stories. Here’s one of them, taking a photograph as inspiration:

A photograph

Two little girls, in identical little dresses. The older, taller, stands up straight and proud, her feet in her shiny new shoes pointing forward in first position. Her chin is raised up, her eyes gaze confidently into the camera. Her right hand rests prettily against her skirt, her left holds on firmly to the hand of the other girl.

The smaller of the two girls does not look into the camera. Her eyes look up at the older girl beside her, her face glowing with admiration as she tries to recreate the same pose. Her feet are not quite in first position, her left hand clutches onto her skirt, and her tongue is protruding slightly from her mouth in concentration.

Behind them is the silky backdrop of the photographer’s set. How artificial, and yet this simple backdrop makes the scene in front that much clearer. Behind the camera, the photographer looks through the lens as he snaps the shot that will eventually be chosen to be framed and placed on the mantelpiece at home.

Off to one side stands a woman. She looks on as the photographer tries to get the two girls to stand still. Smiling at her pretty little daughters posing in their new clothes, a little sad as she thinks about how quickly they are growing up, and tired as she remembers all the chores that still need to be done when they get home.

Is there a figure missing from the picture? The father perhaps?

A moment in the two little girls’ lives. What happened before? What happened later? No one remembers. But that moment, that snapshot, is captured forever.

Filed Under: Greece, Travel Tagged With: atsitsa, rupert brooke, skyrian horse, skyros, skyros centre, the grange

Writing retreat at The Grange: A weekend on the Isle of Wight

15 April, 2014 By Anna S E Lundberg 3 Comments

So from Central America and Disney princes all the way back to Europe and onto an island off the southern coast of England: my first time on the Isle of Wight.

The Grange
The Grange was built in the early 19th century and is located in the old town of Shanklin

It’s funny how you tend not to explore your own country very much and instead fly to far-off destinations to see the wonders of other worlds.

The train took me to Portsmouth, followed by a catamaran ferry across to the island, and then another little train to the end of the line at Shanklin. A short walk up through the town and I arrived at the Georgian house in which I’d be staying.

I had signed up for a course weekend at The Grange. The course was Life Writing, our teacher Alison Habens, a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Portsmouth. She’s written a number of novels, the latest Lifestory, with another to follow next year.

There was Ricky Lawless, a clinical psychologist from New Zealand. Sybella Brown from Zimbabwe together with her son Manaleto Erwin, a tattoo artist who owns 34 pythons. Hammy Honeybell, a PR manager who recently completed her own “5ive island challenge”, culminating in a 60-mile swim around the Isle of Wight back in September 2013. And Racky Sadd, a northern Irish retiree who’s currently sailing the Baltic.

View from Shanklin
The weather fluctuated between gorgeous sunshine and less gorgeous hailstorms. Luckily, I went for a walk with my camera on the first evening and I managed to get some shots in one of the sunny periods…

Perhaps I should clarify that those are not their real names. They’re the result of one of the exercises of the course, involving taking the name of your first pet (Goldie the goldfish in my case) and your mother’s maiden name (Mossler), and using that to create an alter ego. (In social media usage, I believe that same exercise gives you your would-be porn star name.)

The course consisted of three two-hour sessions, in which we were given little exercises that triggered memories and guided us on how to use those memories to create a story. The exercises also served to illustrate how you don’t need to block big chunks of time to work on a book or other writing project. You can actually accomplish a lot in small bouts – an hour a day, 1,000 words, and you have a book in three months! Easy peasy.

So here’s the result of the first longer exercise we did. The trigger was to think about your own name, how you came to be given it, whether you love it or loathe it…

 

A Princess or a Mountain

I was originally going to be called Madeleine. A beautiful name, so feminine, so French. Madeleine Mossler even, to use my mum’s maiden name. Imagine how exquisitely you could form those two alliterative ‘M’s in a signature, or in a monogram. Such a soft sound, mmm…

But in June 1982, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden had their third child, and the new princess was named Madeleine. Princess Madeleine.

So I was named Anna.

My grandma thought Anna sounded like an old woman – her great aunt had been called Anna. I just thought it was ordinary.

My last name was my dad’s name: Lundberg. It’s one of the most common names in Sweden, though elsewhere it’s unusual and gives a clear indication of my origins. Swedish names tend to come from the old tradition of each new generation being named after their father: so Andersson was Anders’ son, Svensson was Sven’s son. Or they came from nature: ‘Lund’ is a small grove, ‘Berg’ is a mountain.

A mountain. A mountain is strong, steady, and still. It cannot be moved, it will not be weakened by the wind or the rain. Rooted in the earth, it stretches ever upward through the skies, majestically maintaining its dignity, its integrity, whatever the movements and mayhem going on around it.

Anna comes from the Hebrew name Hannah meaning favour, or grace.

Graceful mountain. Strength and beauty.

And there’s finally a Princess Anna in the latest Disney film. So maybe I can still be a princess after all.

Filed Under: Life, Travel, United Kingdom Tagged With: alison habens, grange by the sea, shanklin, the grange, writing course, writing retreat

More about Anna

Anna Lundberg is a success coach and business strategist who helps experienced corporate professionals reimagine success outside of the 9 to 5.

Find me on social

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

Apply for a free ‘one step’ call

Apply for your free ‘one step’ call with Anna, to get you started on the path towards more freedom, flexibility and fufilment, here >>

  • About
  • Media
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact

Copyright © 2021 Anna S. E. Lundberg · Log in

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok