Life writing

“I never thought of myself as having any writing ability but I was amazed in how much I wrote in 90 minutes. It was so liberating.”

Life Writing is an entertaining twist on the traditional Life Drawing class and the surprise hit of the Margate Literary Festival 2016!

Using a mix of live actors, music and images to stimulate your senses and create a starting point - or prompt - for your work, it gives you the opportunity to explore or develop your creative writing skills.

“He created a playground for us - surprisingly enjoyable." "You feel very in the room."
The timed writing exercises are a brilliant way to engage your imagination, and give your creativity a kick start, allowing you to go away and continue your stories in whichever way you like.
A fun and stimulating night out, Life Writing is suitable for writers of all levels, and those who don’t consider themselves writers at all, from the complete novice to the Nobel Laureate - a sociable and enjoyable way to engage your brain.
After each session there is a voluntary opportunity to share your work with the group .

The sessions can be graded up from primary level upwards and work particularly well with mixed groups of adults. 

Contact me for details of pricing and availability. 

A set of writing prompts each more bizarre than the last: can you write 800 words without using the letter E? A poem in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer? Write a story in which each alternate sentence is chosen at random from Moby Dick?

These constraints, and many more, are the work of the OuLiPo – Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle, or Workshop for Potential Literature, a group formed by Raymond Queneau in Paris in 1960. 

For many the idea of constrained prompts sounds like torture, but for the rest of us, this is the most fun a writer can ever have. Oulipo exercises are regularly the best reviewed in my writing classes and certainly have generated the most belly laughs. These constraints enhance creativity and generate new writing.

Oulipians are rats who build the labyrinth from which they will try to escape.— Raymond Queneau

I believe this is the only Oulipo workshop currently running in the UK. This workshop is most effective aged 16+. 

Contact me for details of pricing and availability. 

"Your sessions on Sylvia were fascinating"

Taking a narrative approach to the work of  two noble causes of twentieth century poetry: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, this workshop rescues poetry analysis from your worst school nightmares. 

"He always asked thought-provoking and engaging questions. Even the 'harder' conversations are ones I'm glad we had."

A long haul, mixed media story, using film, music, art history, biography and 12-15 poems looked at in detail, this is an intense and emotional deep dive into love, fear and politics. The workshop asks you to engage with the poems and by doing so  breathe them in. 

The workshop operates between 6 and 10 hours that be broken down into two hour sessions. 

 16+. 

Contact me for details of pricing and availability.

"Thank you for being the first teacher who made me appreciate the subject in all its authenticity"

A twist on the traditional creative writing course, this workshop offers 10 distinct writing skills in addition to peer review.

Editing, planning, writing place, character and structure are all taught in a set of entertaining and thought-provoking exercises, and contextualised through the use of excerpts from literary history. 

"This course was an unforgettable experience"

I have 5 years experience as moderator of peer review writing sessions, and I am practiced at drawing out the most beneficial and wide ranging feedbacks from participants. 

16+. 

Contact me for details of pricing and availability.