LIKE A FLOCK FLYING ONWARDS
AFTER WINTER
Writing & Walking Residency
Pennabilli (RN), Italy | 3–6 April 2026
Led by Franca Mancinelli (poet) & Linda Armelius (poet and Nature & Hiking Guide)
Special Guests: poets Karen McCarthy Woolf and Miriam Nash
and Elsbeth Gut (translator)
In collaboration with Ephèmera Cultural Association, Associazione Ricircolo
La punta della lingua festival
Four days dedicated to writing and walking as practices of deep listening — to landscape, language, and inner experience — in dialogue with Pennabilli, a village immersed in the Sasso Simone and Simoncello Natural Parck.
During the residency, participants will develop and share texts. They will work on their notes, gathering them like traces of a shared journey, while drawing inspiration from poets and authors across time. The residency is an opportunity to welcome silence back into our lives, as well as concentration and a sense of temporary community.
The workshop part of our activity will take place in a former seminary in the historic centre of the village, featuring shared spaces and an independent, fully usable kitchen. Sessions will alternate with excursions, walks through the town, and moments of collective exchange.
Special guests in residency: the poets Karen McCarthy Woolf (UK) and Miriam Nash (scottish, living in Trieste), and Elsbeth Gut (translator into German of Tonino Guerra poetry).
Rituals and Traditions
During the Easter period, the local community takes part in the powerful historical re-enactment known as the “Procession of the Jews”, an ancient Good Friday ritual that comes alive each year on the rocky spur of Pennabilli, transforming the village’s life through a ritual of fire and sound.
Archive of Memory
The Ricircolo Association is developing a project connected to the village’s “Archive of Memory”. Between late April and early May, several initiatives, including an exhibition, will be available for the community to enjoy. Texts created during the residency will contribute to this initiative.
Participants
The residency is open to anyone drawn to attentive listening and creative exploration. This includes, but is in no way limited to, writers. We welcome all forms of creativity and self-expression. Walks will be slow-paced but require a reasonable level of physical fitness due to elevation changes and uneven terrain. A basic familiarity with, and enthusiasm for, walking is therefore required.
Territory
Pennabilli offers countless sources of inspiration: its layout, set between two rocky spurs known as the Roccione and the Rupe, once home to the two castles of Penna and Billi; its ecomuseum “I luoghi dell’anima” (“Places of the Soul”), which includes the "Giardino dei frutti dimenticati" (Garden of Forgotten Fruits) and many other sites connected to the work of poet and writer Tonino Guerra; the Regional Natural Park of Sasso Simone and Simoncello, and much more. Four days will not be enough to fully discover this territory, with its villages and fortresses and its unique geological formations, but they will certainly be enough to make us fall in love with this corner of the world, with its sense of peace and slowness.
Accommodation
We will stay at the former Episcopal Seminary of Pennabilli, a historic building located in the town centre. In 2025 the structure was converted into a space for culture, education, and artistic research. It includes studios and multifunctional rooms for rehearsals and workshops, areas for meetings and presentations, shared spaces for collective life, accommodation for residents, and a large internal courtyard used for performances, installations, and public activities. The spatial configuration allows for both individual work and collective, multidisciplinary practices, in an environment that balances concentration, exchange, and openness to the local community.
PROGRAMME
Friday, 3 April
14:00 – Arrival and room allocation
15:00–18:30 – Workshop
21:00 – “Procession of the Giudei”
Saturday, 4 April
09:00 – Towards the City of the Sun: trekking in the Regional Natural Park of Sasso Simone and Simoncello, packed lunch
16:30 – Workshop
Sunday, 5 April
09:30–15:00 – Walk through the village: visit to the Rupe, the Roccione, the Garden of Forgotten Fruits; packed lunch
16:30 – Workshop with Laura Lombardi in collaboration with the Archive of Memory
20:00 – Shared dinner
Monday, 6 April
10:00 – The Childhood of the World: trekking departing from Pennabilli. Tonino Guerra’s Poetry Path, through the hills to the waterfalls of Canaiolo, a place visited by the Dalai Lama. Stop at Villa Maindi for Easter Monday lunch with local residents and readings of our texts or works by other authors.
By 17:00 – Farewells and departures
The programme may be subject to change due to force majeure and at the sole discretion of the organisers.
WHO WE ARE
In 2025 Franca and Linda created the project “Like a Flock in Flight”, which brings together the experience of walking with attentive listening to the landscape and to the words of poetry, within a small travelling community that gathers and disperses at each meeting to safeguard the beauty that lives along mountain paths, among hills, and beside rivers. The title comes from a verse in one of Franca’s books, All the Eyes that I have Opened (Black Square Editions).
Franca Mancinelli
Poet and writer, she has published four poetry books, including the most recent The Little Book of Passage (2018) and All the Eyes that I Have Opened (2022). Her work has been translated into more than fifteen languages. In English, her complete oeuvre, translated by John Taylor, is available in four books published by The Bitter Oleander Press and Black Square Editions (New York). She leads workshops focused on listening and on the experiential dimension of poetic language (for Teatro Valdoca and Scuola Holden) and collaborates with Fondazione Pordenonelegge as a juror for the “Umberto Saba”, “Esordi”, and “I poeti di vent’anni” prizes. Together with Rossana Abis she curates the poetry series Cantus firmus (AnimaMundi edizioni).
Linda Armelius
Author of the poetry collection L’attimo vero (Ghaleb Edizioni, Premio 13, Rome, 2014) and of the chapbook Cadono le montagne (forthcoming with AnimaMundi in e-book, winner of the Laboratorio della Visione Prize, 2024). Passionate about walking journeys and travel on foot, she became a certified Nature & Hiking Guide in 2021.
HOW TO GET THERE
Pennabilli is located inland from Rimini, approximately 50 km away. For those travelling by public transport, the nearest railway station is Rimini. From there, hourly buses run to Novafeltria; get off there and take bus 160 or 161 to Pennabilli.
Participants may coordinate with one another to facilitate travel arrangements.
Address of the venue: Via del Seminario 5, Pennabilli (RN)
For general information about the workshop and excursions):
(comeunostormo@gmail.com
For accommodation information and bookings:
circoloaclipennabilli@gmail.com
