Gulets are just the thing – where to begin? – for restorative lazing, swimming, eating and drinking, and putting ashore to experience another set of glorious ruins. We’ve also noticed just how good they are for getting through books. (I’ve chosen this accompanying image because scrutiny suggests it’s Seal 2 Austen 1 in this case, and evidence of guests enjoying my own books, alongside Emma, are so rare as to be cherished.) Wherever our gulet conversations wend – through what we’ve seen or eaten, where we’ve swum or walked – they also seem to include where we are in our reading. Try as I might, I can’t recall when we last had a non-reader onboard.
Lately, we’ve noticed that some of our guests are at the point of taking their interest in books to the next stage – writing one. Indeed, we’ve had a number of published writers, among them novelists and poets, onboard. No surprise, then, that we’ve often thought about running a gulet-based writing course. What fun that would be, we’ve thought. And then we’ve remembered all the onboard and onshore distractions, and the way our minds tend to mush under the broiling Mediterranean sun, and so we’ve thought again.
So we came up with another plan. In 2022 fellow writer and Turkophile Jason Goodwin and I decided to establish a residential writing course which we instead would run in Dorset, and in the winter. To this end we are returning to Rushay, a lovely Arts and Crafts house on Dorset’s Jurassic coast, in early December. We’ll be there for five nights leading a group of would-be writers through a range of informal presentations, discussions and exercises that delve into plot, voice, character, dialogue and other mysteries of writing. We consider excerpts from published writers – ones we especially admire, some we don’t – to see how they do it. We generate a wealth of conversations, exchanges, theories, clever solutions and lines of enquiry that invariably spill over into meals (all included), afternoon walks and periods of private reflection, reading or writing time. There are walks, and log fires, and cakes, and the atmosphere is a joy.




Between us, Jason and I have some 15 published titles – everything from period crime fiction, travel, general non-fiction and cookery – to our names. In our writing careers we have acquired a rich understanding of how writing works; and as occasional teachers we have also learned how best to communicate our insights and ideas.
If you are a developing writer, or interested in gaining a better understanding of writing, do consider joining us in delightful and comfortable country surroundings for what is invariably a memorable, productive, supportive and highly enjoyable time. And do please forward this to anybody who might find it of interest.
For more on the course, which runs from 29th November to 4th December, and for just how delightful previous guests have found it, please visit https://www.byhillsandthesea.co.uk/courses/
Pix @ Katya Galitzine