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Autumn 2024 Updates

A few updates. 1. I’m preparing masterclasses for the autumn, which include: Perspective & Style, 16 September Showing & Telling, 14 October Genres & Readers, 11 November Endings, 9 December 2024 You can find more information via the links above or at Masterclasses. Classes earlier this year paid attention to the narrative content that makes up our stories: character, setting, plot. In these…

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Masterclasses for Autumn 2024

  I’ve now posted details for my writing masterclasses for Autumn 2024 – see links below: 16 September, 6pm-7.30pm London, Zoom Perspective & Style Techniques to power your storytelling Elevate your writing with this masterclass investigating the craft of perspective. We’ll discover how persona, point of view, tense and narrative distance can make your storytelling brighter and bolder, and…

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Sufferings and Joys

Today’s the day that the days get longer than the nights, and the sun is shining, and my hyacinths are smelling sweetly, and it’s time to sow seeds, and all over social media people are celebrating the joys of spring. But – and I don’t want to spoil the party – for some reason lately I can’t get away from the idea of suffering. Maybe it’s taking a meditation course, where we’re paying attention…

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Reader's Report 2023

As I looked back on the books I read in 2023, I was given pause to think about how I read – in new ways and old. First, I want to mention strategies I adopted in 2023 that made reading more fun. For example, I cast a drag queen as the central character of an Iris Murdoch novel, and that suddenly made a book about the strained mores of postwar poshos much more interesting. Of perhaps greater…

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Masterclasses for 2024

In January I am starting live monthly masterclasses on Zoom. They are designed for writers who want to explore craft and process in writing while learning more about the business and culture of publishing. Masterclasses will run live on Zoom for 90 minutes. They will include discussion on that month’s topics plus a brief writing exercise and a session of Q&A. Every masterclass unit will also come…

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Slow yourself down

A busy week: interesting manuscripts, Zooms, meet-ups, Space Crones, wild poets, wild dancers, old friends, decompressing last weekend’s workshop on tarot for writers in Hastings, thinking towards the next workshop on revising. Plus library books, libraries, bookshops – and a book barge! Also very excited to see discussions in the George Saunders Story Club about ‘The Child’, a story I…

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Autumn 2023 Workshops

Some information on a couple of workshops I’m leading in September and October: 17 September 2023 Magicians and Fools: Tarot for Writers Hastings Book Festival 14 October 2023 The Four Elements of Revising With Words Away at the Phoenix Garden, London WC2 I’ve not taught a revising workshop in some time, and I’m excited to be doing so again, bringing plenty of new insights and ideas. The world…

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Towers of the Unexpected

I was going to skip a quarterly blog post, but hey: life gives you lemons and you make lemonade. On Saturday I fell and broke my wrist! My first ever trip to A&E. I guess I should consider myself lucky to have lived so long without such a visit before, but it’s certainly tedious that I have to cancel and reschedule various plans, and will need to work one-handed. And it’s also tedious that my…

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I Am A Delight Song

I Am A Delight Song

At the Nature Matters workshop earlier this month, we read aloud together The Delight Song of Tsoai-Tale by N. Scott Momaday. A few lines from the opening: I am a feather on the bright sky I am the blue horse that runs in the plain I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water I am the shadow that follows a child I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows I am an eagle playing with the…

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Workshops for Spring 2023: Nature Writing and Perfume

A couple of new Four Elements workshops are coming this spring, again in collaboration with Kellie Jackson of Words Away and hosted at the Phoenix Garden in the heart of London’s West End. You can find more information and booking details at the following links: * Nature Matters: Writing in Nature, Nature in Writing – Saturday 11 March 2023 * Fragrant Matters: Scent, Perfume and Writing –…

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Books of the Year 2022

Books of the Year 2022

I can’t pick a single book of the year, so I’m choosing five that really left a impression on me in 2022: * Annie Ernaux, The Years * Julia May Jonas, Vladimir * Annie Ernaux, Getting Lost * Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard * Joshua Cohen, The Netanyahus A few patterns emerge: campus novels; middle-aged women having affairs with younger Russian studs; natural history and geology; the house of…

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Winter Solstice 2022

The Winter Solstice: tomorrow the days start getting longer! Which just goes to show the ever presence of paradox in the cycles of our lives. But for now it’s 4.30pm and dark outside. A robin is singing: one of my favourite sounds. Rather than post a writing experiment this quarter, I’ve added a page to the resources on my site for Field Work, which is a practice I frequently suggest in tailored…

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Reawakenings: A Four Elements workshop, 26 November 2022

Reawakenings: A Four Elements workshop, 26 November 2022

I’m very pleased to be planning a new real-time, in-person workshop for 26 November: Reawakenings. It’s been nearly three years since we last met at a Words Away workshop! And a lot has happened since then, so for this first workshop I thought we could explore some of these changes in our writing. There’s some darker stuff there, of course, but it also gives us plenty to think about in terms of…

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Rites and Writes for the Autumn Equinox

Rites and Writes for the Autumn Equinox

It’s that time of year again – autumn always seems to be the favourite season of writers. Our inner nerd must associate the cooler air and autumn leaves with the wide-open prairies of unused exercise books. And we’re off! Not that there are as many leaves left to turn orange and fall round here after the summer that we’ve had. Summer: increasingly my least fave season, though this year I did…

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Back To Work

It’s the summer solstice, and it’s warm outside, and there’s a train strike, and even though I don’t commute it makes me feel very lazy. Which is ironic, as this post is all about the world of work. I am inspired by one of the books I’ve enjoyed most so far this year: Marzahn, Mon Amour, by Katja Oskamp, expertly translated by Jo Heinrich and published by Peirene. It’s a memoir by a writer who…

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How (Not) To Get A Book Deal (But Write The Book You Want) (for FREE)

How (Not) To Get A Book Deal (But Write The Book You Want) (for FREE)

I still can’t get over the fact of a literary agency charging £649 for a daylong course called How To Get A Book Deal. We all have to earn a crust, but I thought literary agents did that by taking a commission for selling author’s books. There are some very good courses run by agents and publishers (and writers and editors and writing teachers too …). And there are also plenty of festivals and…