James Cole attends the Lit-Up workshops with me and is running the event below. I’m not able to attend as it’s my final MPhil weekend residency at the University of South Wales. I have masses of reading to do as three fellow students submitted full manuscripts for feedback. I better get on… If you’re free on Saturday, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the input.
As a fund raiser for the Bridport Arts Centre , Frances Colville is organising a spring story slam. This is in addition to the annual story slam that features as part of the Open Book Festival in October each year. Held in the Arts Centre Cafe, the story slam will take place on Thursday 23rd April from 7.30 pm. All entrants are required to read a story of no more than 250 words (the same length as required for the Bridport Prize flash fiction competition). There will be three judges (chosen by the BAC) and prizes for the top three entrants. It is hoped that twenty people will read, but if there are more wanting to do so, names will be drawn from a hat. (This method will also be used to decide the order of those reading.) The charge is £5 entry on the door for both readers and listeners alike. You can register in advance by emailing frances.colville@gmail.com or just turn up on the night. Prose only, please.
Visual to support the framing of ideas for story writing
The Dorset Writer’s Network have secured Arts Council funding to launch a new project with the aim of publishing an ebook which celebrates the diversity of the county. I recently delivered a workshop to support entry and you can read about this here. To have your writing considered for inclusion in the ebook, you are invited to join a competition. Stories must be no longer than 500 words and set in Dorset. Anyone can enter the competition (information for adults appears below) and a further category for 11-16 year olds will be made available shortly. Entrants can live or work anywhere in the country but the story must take place in Dorset (including Poole and Bournemouth). The full rules for the competition appear below.
I do hope you’ll take the opportunity to submit a piece of short fiction. Good luck!
I have joined a course of CPD to support skills in creative writing workshop delivery and facilitation. The programme is organised by Lit Up! with 16 sessions offered by Simon McCormack. With two session already completed, I thought I’d share one of the activities I’ve developed.
Participants were asked to think about time, place and action in writing. Frequently, it is possible to combine two of these elements and Gun fight at the OK Corral was given as an example. The idea made me reflect on product placement as an effective way to:
Examples of product placements might include Pressure Cooker, Sherbet Lemons, Vim Scouring Powder.
I was reminded of the powerful effect of product placement when I reread the following extract from The Devil’s Music by Jane Rushbridge.
Janice brings a tray with tea in a teapot and four lemon puffs on a plate. The ritual of pouring – milk jug, strainer, sugar cubes and tongs, the teaspoon stirring – steadies you, but one bite of Lemon Puff and the nausea washes through you again. The teaspoon clatters down in the saucer and you ask Janice where you can go to powder your nose.
Although the story is set in 1958 (before I was born), I can taste those Lemon Puffs.
For the purpose of using this activity in a workshop, I would ask participants to list products that bring time and place to mind and use one or two as a prompt for story writing.
Anyone game to give this activity a go?
As part of the Dorset Digital Stories project, a series of workshops will be held in January and February 2015 at rural locations throughout the county. The idea is to encourage local writers to submit a story up to 500 words for inclusion in a new e-book. All stories will be set in Dorset so that the anthology reflects the diversity of Dorset: from the human perspective to the sense of place.
I will be delivering a workshop on Friday 16 January 2015 from 10-12 at Cerne Abbas Village Hall DT2 7GY. Everyone is welcome! To book a place please email sue@dorsetwritersnetwork.co.uk or get in touch with me through the contact page on this blog.
For details of other workshops please click here.
At the Wimborne Writing Group, maps have recently been used as a stimulus for creative writing and members have produced an interesting range of creative outcomes. This got me thinking back to a time when I was working in school and used a picture book by Sara Fanelli to develop ideas for writing. Here is the front cover of the picture book, and as you can see, it is intended for younger children but visually stimulating for all. Inside you can find a variety of maps from the map of my bedroom to the map of my stomach.
Drawing upon this idea while delivering a writing workshop with a class of eleven-year-olds (during that period of the summer term after year six SATs) I asked the children to draw a map of their heart. I still have a copy of one child’s work and it leaves me fraught whenever I look at it. The heart is dissected by scar lines and the two halves are held together with sticking plaster. It is speckled with question marks: concerns about the future, the suggestion of insecurity in relationships. The point of the heart has a tiny section for food and drink, where in other examples great sections were dedicated to chocolate bars or ice-creams. It leaves me with a worry that the pupil might have been expressing an eating disorder. Other sections show the usual preoccupations with make-up and shopping and there is an area dedicated to writing stories. Alongside the large outline of a heart there appears another smaller one, rather like a beat that resonates with wishes for a different future. I hope that any input I delivered enabled the pupil to work through some of these concerns, perhaps allowing creative writing to be catalyst for change. It still seems remarkable that an exercise around map making could enable a child to share concerns so readily and it reminds me of my responsibility as a practitioner to take care when tapping into the emotions of others. (At the time, I was able to share these with the child’s class teacher, who was aware of the family circumstances.)
On a lighter note, today I discovered another use for vintage maps, this time decorating a bangle. Included in the programme for Dorset Women’s Day was a workshop delivered by Cath Coffin on making a tree of life pendant and she also held a stall offering items for sale. I was delighted to purchase the piece of jewellery pictured below:
It shows the Dorset coastline, featuring Weymouth and I hope it will be an acceptable gift for someone who is not reading this blog! If you’re interested in purchasing similar items, Cath accepts commissions and can be contacted via email: seaseacreative@gmail.com. Here is a photo of her stall with other items of jewellery.
For more information on International Women’s Day, click here.
Having seen the waves crashing over Porthleven on the television, we decided to make a visit to the fishing port near Helston during our weekend in Cornwall. The sun shone and everything was very calm when we arrived. Porthleven’s most recognisible building the Bickford-Smith Institute with its 70 foot tower had sustained only a few broken windows that were boarded.
Here’s another photo showing a very calm sea.
Now, at the end of the half term break and the weather is looking up again.
It feels like it’s been raining for months and I’ve been cooped inside for a lot of the time. The view from my window shows the extent of flooding in the water meadows. Fortunately, the water goes in the right direction, away from the town but I’ve never seen quite so much silver on what should be green fields.
Last weekend, we ventured to the coast where the wind blasted so strongly it was difficult to stand up straight. The waves at West Bay were amazing and here’s a photo to show the force of the water. (It didn’t look like this on the TV crime drama Broadchurch.)
We’re off to Falmouth, Cornwall for the Valentine weekend (the first occasion we’ve ever celebrated away from home). The forecast says rain. I’m going to pack a couple of books and my laptop in case it’s too awful to go out. Fortunately, the hotel has a terrace lounge with views over the sea so we’ll have something to look at, watching the waves.
the writer is a lonely hunter 