By Alli Neri

If you’ve attended one of our reading retreats, you know that things can quickly become…what’s the right word…unhinged? Let me prove my point with the first out of context quote:

“Beware the thong for, it knows your name”

If you haven’t been to one of our reading retreats, it goes something like this:

You show up to a weekend with a bunch of other fantasy lovers. And because of the dedicated space, the shared interest and reason for meeting, and the nature of our programming, you become instant best friends with just about everyone in the room. By night one you’re cry-laughing because someone said something like “load the beef cannon.” And by night two, you are already planning travel with your new besties, signing each other’s books with the inside jokes you’ll never forget, and cry-crying because you leave each other tomorrow.

“Load the beef cannon”

I personally have never laughed harder than when I was at the dinner table at Mohonk Mountain House on our Fourth Wing-inspired reading retreat surround by a bunch of dragon lovers. The conversation turned into our idea about loading our steak scraps into a beef cannon and launching it into the woods for the bears.

Out of context that makes no sense and, honestly, it’s probably not even funny. I get that.

Because it really is one of those “you had to be there” things.

And that’s how these retreats go: you really do need to be there to get the experience of it.

“Sockets”

It’s so mind-blowing to me that even just one word — a word like “sockets” — can send an entire room of people into a roaring fit of laughter. That is the true beauty of these retreats. It’s a time and place and specific group of people that together create their own magic.

Our Throne of Glass-inspired reading retreat from June 2024. One of the best game of charades I’ve ever seen.

“Hot dog Tyler”

I personally wasn’t on the retreat where hot dog Tyler can into fruition, but I know what anyone who was there would recognize that phrase from three states over. That’s the power of people gathering together in real life, face-to-face. Because it truly doesn’t matter if it’s hot dog Tyler or hot dog Susan, it’s the memory of it. It’s the people that you laughed with. It’s the exact moment in time that that phrase brings you back to.

“I’m going to bring my leathers and hope for the best”

If you’ve never been on a reading retreat before, it’s easy to imagine a calm, peaceful weekend with you and your book and lots of in-depth discussions. And maybe there are some reading retreats out there that are exactly like that.

But our reading retreats at Forest & Fawn take things to another level. Your belly will hurt for days if not weeks from all the core-busting laughter. You’ll have new lines by your eyes from all the smiling. Or at least that’s been my experience facilitating these retreats for two years now.

“Nolán”

When an inside joke like this is created amongst a group of people, it’s not just a one-time, random event. It now becomes part of how you know the person or people who said it. It is now imprinted in your mind whenever you think about those people or that time in your life. I’ll personally never forget the time my own sister had to act out the character “Nolán” in charades, only to find out that Nolán is not even a character 😆. I’m sure that her attempt is to this day still seared into the minds of all 40 people on that retreat.

An unforgettable group at our Fourth Wing-inspired reading retreat in June 2025

“Hoo ya!”

One of my very favorites. In fact, I just told the story of “Hoo ya!” to my good friend just this morning. Without going into too much detail, it all started when our yoga instructor didn’t show up on day two of our ACOTAR-inspired retreat. Well, I’m a certified yoga instructor, so I decided to step in. What started out as a calm, peaceful morning flow quickly turned into Valkyrie training lead by a particularly beloved general. It ended with the whole group yelling “Hoo ya!” at the same time like they’d been practicing it for weeks. I’ll never forget that moment.

“Your name means rock in my language”

I hope by now you’ve gotten the point that when pulled out of context, all of these phrases are close to meaningless. Some are nonsensical. But in the context of the magical, cozy, laughter-filled weekend that they originated from, they bring back nothing but warm memories.

We’ve likely all experienced this kind of group-bonding in one form or another. And that’s exactly what you can expect at one of our reading retreats.

Yes, we read books. Yes, we discuss said books. Yes, we play fun games about said books, too. But more than all of those things combined, we bring together lovers of fantasy & fairytale and help create bonds that last a lifetime.

I’ll leave you with one final out of context quote that, unless you were there, probably means nothing to you.

“Don’t cry, Loca”

Happy Reading,

🌲 Alli

Out of context quotes from 2 years of fantasy reading retreats