Throughout this three-day/four-night retreat at the Bundanoon Guest House, author, ecologist and environmental photographer - Alison Pouliot invites you to enter more fully into the living world and bring its textures, atmospheres, strangeness, and complexity onto the page. Designed to reawaken the sensory dimensions of writing, this workshop sharpens attention to place, embodiment, and perception. Whether you write about the natural world or simply want to deepen the felt reality of your work, it will expand your imaginative range, calibrate your powers of observation, awaken curiosity toward unfamiliar lifeforms and environments, and develop a richer, more precise sensory vocabulary — particularly the elusive and often-overlooked language of scent.

And "place" need not mean "wilderness". It may be a subway carriage, a skyscraper, a medieval monastery, a neglected garden, or the interior terrain of memory itself. Every environment carries its own sensory pulse and character, emotional weather, and hidden stories.

Through guided exercises, field observation, and encounters with a Wunderkammer of natural and curious objects, where you will explore how attention transforms language, and how sensory detail generates atmosphere, emotional resonance, and narrative depth. We'll work with objects and imagery, sound and texture, light and scent, investigating how environments shape consciousness, memory, desire, and story.

Participants will develop practical techniques for crafting vivid imagery, grounding scenes in specificity, and creating prose that feels immersive, embodied, and alive. There will be ample time for writing, walking, reflection, and discussion.

The workshop will take place both indoors and in the guest house garden, so please bring a pencil, notebook, and sturdy shoes.

Open to writers of all levels and genres.

The Retreat is held at Bundanoon Guest House, one of the few original Guest Houses remaining in Bundanoon, a small Southern Highlands village with a population of just under 3000, and gateway to Morton National Park. Built in 1925, the House still retains the charm and character of that era, including an open fire. The House comprises a generous guest lounge, public sitting room, large games and conference room, a large dining room, private dining room, bar, front verandah and an extensive garden.  The Guest House is situated a short walk from the railway station, cafes, tea rooms, restaurants, gift shops as well as a local Pub and Sports Club.   Writers are accommodated in their own room with ensuite and all meals from Monday dinner to Friday breakfast are included. 

All placements are residential and in line with our commitment to provide small quality events, this Retreat has a limit of 12 participants. 

To learn more about Writing the Senses - Writing in Place and secure your place at this retreat, email: writers@writersatthewoolshed.com.au.

Bio:
Dr Alison Pouliot is an ecologist and environmental photographer who uses words and images to evoke stories of the living world, as well as the non-living. Alison is especially interested in forgotten corners and lifeforms; the stuff that slips between the cracks. Alison aims to convey the extraordinariness of life, both peculiar and familiar, and is rather partial to the fungal and the spineless.

Alison is the author of The Allure of Fungi, Underground Lovers - Encounters with Fungi (Nominated as Readings Non-Fiction Book of the Month March 2023),  Funga Obscura (Longlisted for 2026 Indie Book Awards), and her most recent - Mushroom Day.  Alison is co-author of Wild Mushrooming - A Guide for Foragers (shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards 2022: Illustrated Non-Fiction). 

Alison's penchant for new ventures and experiences has led her to unique and remote environments within Australia and beyond. She endeavours to document the moods and resonances of those places in the hope of inspiring their protection and conservation.  You usually find Alison somewhere between the centre of Victoria, Australia and the centre of Switzerland, or somewhere off the edge. Read more about Alison here.