Halloween workshops!

Information about the Song and Writing workshops for the October mid-term break is up now! We're running two workshops - one for kids (8-12) and one for teens (13-17) - at Ballinteer Community School, Tues Oct 27 - Fri Oct 30. The kids workshop runs from 9am-2.30pm, the teen workshop 10am-3.30pm, and in both, all levels of musical and writing experience are catered for. Registration forms are available from the site - workshop fee is €125 per student, with a family discount available (even if family members are taking different workshops).

Meanwhile, over at the Big Smoke Writing Factory, there are two open registration evenings coming up before term starts: one on Friday 11 Sept, 6-9pm and another on Saturday 19 Sept, 2-6pm. We're accepting bookings right up until course start dates providing places are still available. Had lovely chats with people at last open evening about YA fiction, novel writing, and writing in general, so should be fun!

(Using more exclamation points than usual these days - sometimes the sign of a deranged mind, they say, but mostly, I think, a sign of really looking forward to various upcoming workshops... oh, and a ! for good measure!)

Autumn/winter 2009

As the academic year rolls around... here are some of the things I will be doing in the autumn/winter which are sign-uppable for. (So not a word. Indeed. Forgive me.)

Creative writing classes for adults at Big Smoke Writing Factory (online registration available at the site)
-- Novel In Progress workshop (Monday evenings)
-- Starting A Novel (Tuesday mornings or evenings)

Creative arts workshops for kids and teens with Song and Writing (registration will be available online soon)
-- October midterm break workshop for 8-12-year-olds
-- October midterm break workshop for teens
-- Teachers, find out about getting a workshop into your school

School and library visits
-- Find out more here.

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!)