CTYI spring/summer 2009

At the moment I'm teaching Imaginative Writing for the 8-12s on Saturdays at CTYI. Sometimes the students interpret 'Imaginative' as 'fantastical', which it doesn't need to be, though often it is. I like it; it's a course I've taught a few times and it's always different. Some things stay the same: there's usually something to do with character development, there's reading out of work, and there's free writing. But other things change. It's to do with 'going off topic', I think; writing classes very easily go off-topic, filled with people who like telling stories, and kids are (sometimes) quite unselfconscious about that. But it's a class where the main purpose is to get students writing, get them trying new things, introduce them to the dreaded concept of 'drafting'. So off-topic-ness can always be lured back and used.

The Novel Writing course (Session 2 of the summer programme, 12th - 31st July 2009) is a bit different in that it has more specific goals. It's three weeks, full days, older students (12-16s, secondary school), and a group novel to write in the second week and an individual chapter to write in the third. But the very nature of it means that it can't ever be exactly the same, year after year, and I like that. Plus the fact that it's concentrating on novel writing in particular means it's something different for students who've taken a general creative writing class, or who always opt for the 'write a story' essay on their English exams.

(Note, casual and unofficial, for eligible CTYIers and/or their parents: deadline for receiving applications is April 3. Other classes people of a creative/writerish persuasion might be interested in include the following: 'Write, Act, Perform', 'Writing for Life', 'Speculative Fiction Writing', 'Journalism', 'Drama', and 'Gothic Studies'. Watch as the humanities take over nerd camp!)

About Claire

'About' pages tend to feel like they should be written in the third person, like mini-biographies inside book covers. I'm curbing the urge.



My writing background:

I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and when working on what became my first published book I started thinking about publication. Dear Diary... (Poolbeg Press, 2000) appeared on bookshelves almost two years after I'd started writing it, and several more books with Poolbeg followed: Being Her Sister (2001); Memories (2002); Stereotype (2003); Good Girls Don't (2004); Afterwards (2005); That Girl (2007); Big Picture (2008). The first three were collected in Girls on the Verge: the Claire Hennessy Collection (2005). My ninth book, Every Summer, has just been published (summer 2009). These are books mostly for teenagers and pre-teens (the central characters range between 12 and 18), and I cling to the 'young adult' label where possible. I'm a fan of the first person, the present tense, and multiple viewpoints. All my books come under the heading of 'realistic fiction' and have a contemporary setting, although some day I do want to delve into the more improbable or otherworldly for at least some of my work.

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My teaching background:

I started giving talks and readings and doing school and library visits shortly after the publication of my first book in 2000 (actually, I think the first visit was just before the book was in the shops). I've also spoken at conferences and other events on various issues to do with writing for children and teenagers. These things tend to be once-off events.

In terms of designing and teaching longer courses for adults, I taught the Novel and Novel 2 course at the Irish Writers' Centre (Parnell Sq, Dublin 1) for several terms (2006-8). These were 12-week evening courses, concentrating specifically on novel writing (I also taught an Intermediate Creative Writing course in 2007, where I remembered that things like short stories, poetry and scripts also exist).

I've worked at CTYI (the Irish Centre for Talented Youth) at Dublin City University since June 2005. I worked as a teaching assistant on several courses (Writing For Life, Speculative Fiction Writing, Imaginative Writing) before becoming an instructor. Since 2006, I've taught Script Writing, Writing Stories and Imaginative Writing to 8-13-year-olds, and - since 2007 - Novel Writing to 12-16-year-olds (an intensive three-week summer programme). I also worked as a tutor on the Writing By Mail correspondence course (12-16-year-olds; Transition Year students) and designed the Writing By Mail courses for 8-13-year-olds.

I co-facilitate Song and Writing creative arts workshops (song writing, creative writing, drama, music, performance) for kids and teens. I run these with a good friend of mine, Dara Black, who does magical things with music and with teaching.

I'm one of the founders of the Big Smoke Writing Factory, a space for creative writing workshops, classes and other events in Dublin, run by writers who are also experienced facilitators and bring these twin skills to the classroom. I'm teaching novel writing and young adult fiction in the autumn/winter of 2009.

I've also done some manuscript critiquing, both for pay and on a voluntary basis, and am happy to discuss that with anyone who might be interested.

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What and how I teach:

I believe in tailoring course content to suit a particular group, though obviously depending on age group, time available, and course title, the amount of flexibility varies. A 'general' creative writing course can lead almost anywhere, whereas a course on, say, The Novel, or Young Adult Fiction, or Short Stories, will understandably focus on those things. However, topics might turn up in a different order, or some exercises not used or exchanged for others, in those kind of classes depending on how the course goes. Or to put it another way: there are many routes to whatever the goal of the class is.

I don't use a huge number of examples of 'great works' when I teach, and try to keep the excerpts I do use from relatively recent works (i.e. not Shakespeare, Dickens, or Joyce). I am a believer in thinking about why what you're reading works, but in analysing it from the point-of-view of a writer/reader rather than a literary critic. (So leaving out words of the variety that start with 'post' and end with 'ism' when discussing something, for example.)

The balance between 'writing time', discussion, workshopping (offering up work for constructive criticism) and reading varies from class to class, but (especially in classes for adults) the expectation is that students will work on material outside of class as well, whether it's finishing up or polishing a piece or, say, writing another chapter of their novel.

My main goals when I teach are to get people writing now rather than writing one day, and to help people identify their particular strengths and utilise them in their work. My particular teaching strengths are in a) fiction, particularly novels; b) writing for younger audiences; c) facilitating groups that are working on long-term projects (a novel, a novella, a collection of short stories, etc).

I suspect I'll be revisiting this post every so often. Last updated: 2 September 2009.

Why Writerish.org?

So, the why of writerish.org. It's not my first website, or my me-as-writer website - that lives at clairehennessy.com, and it's not my first blog - I babble on over at livejournal quite a bit. Why on earth, then, do I need another site for? (Quite aside from the joy of having a 'dot org', of course.)

Some of the writerly-tangential things I do tie into my books, and the site and LJ, quite nicely: readings or school visits, where the focus is usually on the specific writer and what they have written and why they've written it and whether or not they've secretly disguised ex-lovers or former friends in the text. That kind of thing. But then there are other things, like creative writing classes or workshops, where what you bring to the table has less to do with your own work so much as what you've learned from it, and what you've learned about "the writing process" (let's keep the quote marks there, shall we?) in the years you've been writing and publishing.

So what I'm trying to do here, I guess, is to have a site I can point people towards to let them know about classes/workshops that I'm doing, or collaborating with, or whatever else seems relevant, without having to subject them to days and days wading through various versions of 'Dear livejournal, today I drank lots of tea and pondered the meaning of life.' We'll see how it goes.

Test

Does it work? Let's find out, shall we?