Sunday 2 August 2015

Parbold Arts Festival Free Creative Writing Workshops

I am running a series of creative writing workshops as part of the Parbold Arts Festival: A Tall Tale to Tell. And they're free!

The workshops will be held at Parbold Library. Maggie and the the library team have been fantastic in helping to organise them. Their enthusiasm and passion for literature and creativity is inspiring. The workshop dates are:

Monday 10th August 7-9 pm
Tuesday 11th August 7-9 pm
Thursday 13th August 7-9 pm

Please do come along, if you are local.

I'm really looking forward to the workshops and hearing the stories that the participants create. Workshops, especially with community groups, always feel collaborative. People bring with them all sorts of experiences and perspectives that we learn from as a group. We feed each other's creativity.

Creative writing is sometimes misunderstood. There is often the notion that the best creative writers are the ones that got all the praise and attention at school. The ones that can spell perfectly and understand punctuation rules. Brilliant creative people are often put off creative writing because of these false notions.

During a creative writing workshop, I'm not interested in spelling or the function of an Oxford comma. What interests me is the small details people notice in their everyday lives. That moment they witnessed something that has stayed with them. That particular emotion they experienced that they want to capture in a few sentences because there isn't quite a single word that describes it. A story idea that has been bubbling away for a few years that they haven't quite had the confidence to start writing yet. I'm interested in the fact that if you give a group of people three unconnected words, each person will find links between those words in a unique and intriguing way. That if you ask someone to describe a room they know well, the aspects of that space that they choose to describe or jot down will be instantly emotive. We are all storytellers. And we help each other to bring those stories out. I can't wait to meet the participants who come along. I am looking forward to learning with them.

If you would like to come, or if you have any questions about the workshops, please don't hesitate to get in touch!

I'll post more soon about the free visual arts workshops that are also planned. In the meantime, here is a sketch of the dragon of Parbold Hill by one of the lead artists, Andy Shaw. Andy and Sharon, whose stunning artwork can be seen at their studio in the Millhouse, Parbold, are preparing brilliant workshops to animate the tall tale with puppets and a life sized dragon creature. I can't wait!

'Fruit Dragon' by Andy Shaw @Article fine arts, Parbold



Parbold Arts Festival is funded through grants obtained by Parbold Community Association and WLBC Arts Development team.

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