DRAWING OUT THE ESSENCE
with Colin Grant
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
All writing begins with experience, but how you translate that experience is what matters. This workshop is for writers who wish to transform the truth and experience of their own lives in non-fiction work with the focus on the telling of a story. If you’ve started writing from life experiences but are unsure how to proceed - whether getting to the story’s truth or the beginnings of a biography (yours or someone else’s) memoir - this is for you. Colin Grant will guide you to the centre of your story, exploring the technical and creative opportunities and challenges of life writing.
The workshop will involve short exercises in beginning, structuring, and ending your story, as well as group discussion. Participants will work individually, in pairs and small groups; once the writing exercises have been completed all will be encouraged, at some stage of the workshop, to read from what they have worked on.
Writing Tools: bring along a photo - that has a story attached to it. The photo can printed or on a mobile phone.
Books that Colin will draw on for extracts and discussion: Alexander Maxwell - So Long See You Tomorrow, Kerry Hudson – Lowborn, Anne Lister - The Secret Diaries Of Miss Anne Lister, Jeanette Winterson - Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal, V.S.Naipaul - The Enigma of Arrival, Diana Athill - Stet & After the Funeral,Colin Grant- Bageye at the Wheel
SCHEDULE
9:30 - Coffee
10:00 - Morning session: Exercises will include: writing in first and third person; writing from different points of view; the use of sensory props (e.g photos) and building the framework for your story.
12:30 – Lunch break (bring your own)
14:00 – Afternoon session: Exercises will focus on the use of monologue and dialogue; counter-intuitive writing and inversion, and the inclusion of artefacts such as diaries.
16:30 - Close
Register now through the GWG website, or write to:
genevawriters@gmail.com
Payments can be made online via the GWG website, or in cash on the day
