ONLINE 5-week Short Course: Writing in Response to Personal & Contemporary History (Nov 23)

With Priscilla Morris

Thursday, 7-9pm, live teaching via Zoom Online Meeting

9, 16, 23 November, [no class on 30 November], 7 and 14 December 2023

Please note there will be a break of a week to skip Thursday 30 November.

[Zoom link in ticket confirmation]

This online course is for those who want to learn how to alchemise real life into fiction, poetry, or creative non-fiction. It is open to those working in all forms – short stories, novels, poetry, scripts and creative nonfiction, such as memoir and personal essay. If you have an idea from personal or contemporary history that you’re passionate about turning into creative gold, then this is the course to show you how.On this five-week short course, you will receive instruction and tips on:

– The best form for your idea

– How and what to research – and how much research is enough

– Characterisation and stories from real life

– Creative nonfiction responses to family history and current affairs

– Setting and Dialogue

– Drawing it all together and editing

There will be plenty of opportunities for group discussion and stimulating activities with your peers. You will be emailed a dossier of relevant reading and inspiring writing prompts and tasks.

Biography:

Priscilla Morris is a fiction writer, whose debut novel Black Butterflies is set in the 1990s during the siege of Sarajevo. Her mother is from Sarajevo, in the former Yugoslavia. Priscilla has many fond childhood memories of baklava, forested mountains, fast-flowing rivers and her warm extended Bosnian family. Her father rescued her grandparents from the siege in the freezing winter of 1993. Her great-uncle, whose story was the original inspiration for Black Butterflies, was a landscape painter whose studio burnt down during the war.

Black Butterflies was Indie fiction book of the month in May 2022 and the paperback comes out in April 2023. It is shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction, and the 2023 RSL Ondaatje Prize.

Priscilla has an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. She lectures in Creative Writing at University College Dublin. From the UK, she now lives between Ireland and Spain.

Details:

The workshop 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 the day of the workshop.

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.

Short courses 2022/23:

We are running a mix of short courses and workshops online and in person, so you can choose to attend the session you are the most comfortable with.

All our short courses and workshops are priced at £15 per taught hour.

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. If you feel you need 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.