Residential Writing Course: Starting to Write - Play with words to find your own voice
Do you feel wary when you sit down to write? Perhaps the instrument of writing feels new and strange. In 1975, Keith Jarrett found himself on stage at the Köln Opera House, sitting at the wrong piano. Instead of his requested Imperial Concert Grand, he had a small one in poor condition with faulty pedals – on which he then played the best-selling record of his career. This course will be all about playing, slamming pen to paper and joyfully experimenting with words that disrupt and surprise – ourselves as well as the reader.
Join award winning tutors Caroline Bird and Mark Haddon as they help you take risks, forget the distinctions between poetry and prose, memoir and fiction, and guide you to find your own sound. With the support of your fellow writers, you’ll find a language which fits your way of thinking and feeling. If that language, and the world it describes, are a complete surprise, all the better. We’ll all share our work and, in hearing how a piece changes a room, we’ll learn to listen to our own writing and understand how it works.
By the end of the week you’ll find it easier to put yourself in the shoes of that imaginary stranger, the reader, and edit you work to make their experience richer and more vivid. And you’ll have a bulging folder of work to go away and build on.
What to Expect:
• Group workshops: These will involve talks from your tutors and exercises to expand your writing, the results of which we’ll share in a supportive environment
• Personal Feedback: Focused 1:1 sessions with inspiring tutors for constructive feedback on your work
• Quiet time: in which you can work on the pieces you have begun in the workshops
• Community: Share meals and workshops with a supportive group
• A final evening: on which we all share and celebrate the best work from the week
• On departure day: you’ll leave feeling inspired and full of ideas. You’ll have a better understanding of your own voice, of what you can say and how you might best say it.