The Resonance of Things

An Online Writing Retreat in Dramatization
with Jonah Willihnganz and Andrew Todhunter

August 31 - September 3, 2026

Powerful writing lives not through explanation but through the accretion of concrete and fitting detail. The strongest writing, to paraphrase essayist E.B. White, has often been described as “nouns verbing.” The noun “knife,” in this sense, is stronger than the adjective “sharp.” On the page, as in the world, a knife is a fact. On the page, nouns and verbs seem to occupy real space. We remember them, to some degree, the way we remember them in life. If we have read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, we may remember the blade of grass swirling in the tin cup as though it were a sense experience from our own lives. 

Writers achieve this effect through a web of individual details accumulating, line by line, like nerve cells firing in sequence along a carefully constructed spine. The scenes and stories we remember most are usually loaded with concrete, sensate details, not only because they create the most immersive, vivid experience for the reader, but because it is through those details alone that writers have the best chance of transmitting the unsayable. Grace can only be dramatized.

In this four-day online retreat, then, we will focus on working the raw earth of our writing—the physicality of scene, action, gesture, and speech. We’ll look at how to develop sensory details that resound, in isolation or in concert with others, to create a complex world of feeling in the reader. In the spirit of courses we have designed together at Stanford University, the retreat will offer a range of discussions and exercises to sharpen your craft, in fiction or non-fiction. Each day we’ll open with a discussion of a brief passage whose effect is grounded in its use of concrete detail. You will then choose from among several exercises to develop the skill at work in that passage and write on your own for several hours.  We’ll then reconvene to share our experience putting these craft elements into practice.

Schedule

The retreat will run from Monday, August 31 through Thursday, September 3, 2026, on zoom. Each day, from 10:00am -12:00pm, we will begin with a discussion of a specific craft element. Participants will then choose from among several related exercises to work with on their own, composing new work or revising existing projects in fiction or nonfiction. From 3:00pm -5:00pm, we will gather again as a group for sharing, feedback and discussion. 

Up to eight participants may also register for individual sessions on a 5th day, Friday, September 4th. For these 45-minute sessions, both instructors will provide feedback on up to 5,000 words of a manuscript submitted two weeks prior to the retreat. Participants may sign up for these sessions on a first come first served basis. 

Application, Registration, and Materials

This will be an intimate retreat and space will be limited, so registration is based upon a short written application. To apply, please follow this link. We will respond to submitted applications within 72 hours. If the retreat fills, admitted applicants will be invited to join a wait list. 

The cost of the 4-day retreat is $1,150 per person. The optional add-on feedback session on the 5th day is an additional $350 per person. Admitted students will have two weeks to secure their spot with the retreat fee. Refunds will only be made if the retreat is sold out and we are able to arrange a replacement. All required readings will be provided. Participants need only a reliable internet connection, access to zoom, and writing materials. We encourage participants to protect the daily 12-3pm writing period to get the most out of the retreat.

If you have any questions, please email us at lanternsinthetrees@gmail.com.

The Instructors

Andrew Todhunter is an award-winning writer and lecturer at Stanford University, where he teaches writing, interdisciplinary creativity and contemplative practice. He is the co-founder and co-director of two programs at Stanford—The Senior Reflection, and the LifeWorks Program for Integrative Learning. His book A Meal Observed won the PEN USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction. He is also the author of Dangerous Games and the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller Fall of the Phantom Lord. A longtime practitioner of meditation and Aikido, he often integrates these practices and wilderness experience into his courses at Stanford.

Jonah Willihnganz is the Director of the Stanford Storytelling Project, an arts program that explores how narrative craft and practices can deepen natural human capacities such as courage, empathy, and gratitude. He has published fiction, essays, and literary criticism, and has taught literature and creative writing at Stanford for more than 25 years. As co-director of the LifeWorks Program for Integrative Learning, he has helped design and teach courses that bring together psychology, contemplative science, and wisdom traditions to help students meet suffering and experience deeper meaning. He also co-leads the Dalai Lama Fellowship at Stanford.

When things get too much for me, I put a wild-flower book and a couple of sandwiches in my pockets and go down to the south shore of Staten Island and wander around awhile in one of the old cemeteries down there.

—Joseph Mitchell, “Mr. Hunter’s Grave,” Up in the Old Hotel, 1992