ONLINE 5-week Short Course: Autumn Enchantments (November 2024)

Online Sessions: Tuesdays 19:00 – 21:00 GMT

Dates: Tuesday 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th November & 3rd December 2024

5 Live teaching sessions via Zoom Online Meeting [Zoom link in ticket confirmation]

Course Overview:

Each week you’ll read a range of contemporary and classic poems, share ideas and try playful, inventive writing exercises designed to spark new work. Themes will include: poems as spells, magical botanicals, mythical creatures and everyday enchantment.

Course Highlights:

A gentle, playful course to help keep you inspired and writing through the dark autumn.

A supportive, nurturing group environment and a chance to connect with poets of different stages and approaches.

A range of inventive exercises and new contemporary poems to discover.

Tutor bio:

Liz Berry is an award-winning poet and author of the critically acclaimed collections Black Country (Chatto, 2014); The Republic of Motherhood (Chatto, 2018); The Dereliction (Hercules Editions, 2021) a collaboration with artist Tom Hicks; and most recently The Home Child (Chatto, 2023), a novel in verse. Liz’s work, described as “a sooty soaring hymn to her native West Midlands” (Guardian), celebrates the landscape, history and dialect of the region. Liz has received the Somerset Maugham Award, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, The Writers’ Prize and two Forward Prizes. Her poem ‘Homing’, a love poem for the language of the Black Country, is part of the GCSE English syllabus. Liz is a patron of Writing West Midlands.

Who is this course suitable for?

Poets of all stages and approaches welcome.

Details:

The sessions will take place online via Zoom Online Meeting software. It is free to download and you will only need the free version to attend. Please download it and check it is working before your course/workshop starts.

Please try and be somewhere you can concentrate and won’t be interrupted. Headphones can be useful if you have some, to cut out other noise.

Bursary Scheme 2024:

We understand that not all writers are able to pay for their writing courses to further their career, and we run a Bursary Scheme as a consequence. Our bursary policy can be read here, if you would like to apply for a bursary, please contact us: info@writingwestmidlands.org.

Please note: you must sign up for the full course even if you cannot attend all dates. No partial course ticket is available.

Short Courses are for over 18s. If you are a young writer, you can sign up for our Spark Young Writers Programme.

All Writing West Midlands short courses are collaborative, and you will learn as much from your fellow course attendees as from the tutor. You will be expected to play an active role in group tasks, and you will also have time to reflect on your own writing during sessions.

Course handouts are sometimes (but not always) available, and notes may be available in advance upon request. If you have any additional needs, please contact Writing West Midlands in advance of the course starting and we will try to assist you.