On a Wednesday afternoon, we squeezed into a car and began our journey from Vienna to the Faaker See in Carinthia. The scenery we found ourselves in upon arrival could truly have sprung from an Agatha Christie novel: The hotel was located in the middle of nowhere next to a beautiful lake and surrounded by somber woods. We arrived late in the evening and were welcomed by the receptionist with the revelation that we would be their only guests. Five PhD students, isolated from the world in a lonely hotel in Carinthia. It seemed to us it was only a matter of time until one of us would disappear mysteriously and we would have to turn to a belgian detective to find our missing colleague.

The thought of being struck by a sudden death seemed to stimulate our writing spirits. Nobody wanted to leave this earth without having finished what they came for. The absolute calmness of the place, the fabulous view of the lake and the icy temperature outside made for an ideal thinking and writing atmosphere. We had a large and bright seminar room for us alone and were provided with tea and coffee. Each of us had brought a few writing projects, on which we worked individually during the day. In the morning and evenings, we would have brief check-in rounds to share how things were going and receive feedback from the others. Among other topics, we discussed how to best document thoughts and take notes during the PhD, which publications strategies proved successful, and how to approach a policy document analysis.

Our writing sessions were framed by the breakfast, lunch and dinner times. The chef would already wait slightly impatient for our appearance when we made our way from the seminar room. We were served with 'Kärtner specialities', which we honestly enjoyed. However, the chef seemed disappointed with our moderate appetite. In terms of quantity, we clearly could not keep up with their usual guests mainly consisting of hungry teenagers on summer sports camps. Since there was no one waiting for our table, we could stay after dinner, chat and play card games. We spent the evenings discussing how our disciplinary backgrounds shape our viewpoints, joking about which careers outside of academia we could envision for us and battling each other with the most cumbersome abbreviations found in our respective research fields.

The writing retreat was the most wonderful experience and not only valuable for us individually but also for us as a group. When leaving on Sunday morning, we were truly relieved that the only mysterious riddle we were confronted with was the riddle of academic research – and since no belgian detective was around to help us, we cannot say that we solved it.   

As a testimony to the creative spirits with us in those days, here is a poem written at that time:

Writing-Retreat

Deserted in Kärnten

Freed from care work

Food three times a day

Writing