Writing Courses with Word After Word
NEW COURSES FOR AUTUMN 2018!
‘My Story’
Memoir & Writing from Life with Fi Mason
A 6 week course
Tuesdays 11am – 1pm from 30th October
Wivenhoe Bookshop
Classes will meet on Tuesdays 11am – 1pm
30th Oct, 6th Nov, 13th Nov, 27th Nov, 4th Dec & 11th Dec.
The fee for this 6-week course is £100.00.
Book your place by email, or call us on 01206 824050
About the Course
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou
We all have a story to tell and memories can nag at us to be given voice, but capturing and taming them into a coherent story can be as difficult as netting air.
My Story is an introduction to the genre of Memoir, which is writing from lived experience. It’s about identifying a story that you want to tell, finding the voice with which to tell it, and developing some of the tools that will help you to turn a personal account into a page turning story.
Personal narratives can be informative, funny, cathartic, tragic, healing and revealing. Through telling them we can learn as much about ourselves as about the human condition, and in sharing them on the page, we have the opportunity to take readers on a profound and deeply personal journey of their own.
Each week there will be writing exercises in class and a short homework, so you can put into practice what you’ve learnt, and there will be an opportunity to share your work in a supportive and constructive environment.
By the end of this course you will have gained a deeper understanding of writing from life and have developed greater confidence in telling your story.
My Story
Week 1: Editing the Truth – bearing witness, truth on the page and critiquing memoir.
Week 2: What’s Your Story? – truth vs. story, defining story and a life in snapshot
Week 3: Memory and Place – objects, sense memory and setting.
Week 4: Ethics of Memoir – truth vs. confidentiality, whose story is it?
Week 5: The Truth in Fiction – writing from life as inspiration for both memoir and fiction.
Week 6: Writing for Readers – who’s your audience?
Student Testimonials
“A great My Story taster workshop. It was so enjoyable – planned, prepped and led so well. We were guided gently and comfortably with great tutoring and great people to share the writing experience with. I left with my appetite whetted, confidence built, fun had, brain and heart fed and inspiration to keep writing found! I’m booking the course! Thanks Fi, what a pleasure.”
“I attended the Taster Day for ‘My Story’ memoir and life writing course as I thought it would be a fun thing to do. I did not realise it would challenge my preconceived ideas about memoir writing. I cannot wait to start the full 6-week ‘My Story’ course!”
“Struggling to make my memoirs interesting and readable, I attended Fi Mason’s My Story taster workshop. I could see that the full course would be of great benefit for me. She presents in a very gentle and motivating way. The session was fun with a lot of smiling and I enjoyed it immensely. Fi got the content just right. She didn’t miss anything and gave really good feedback if I started to go off course.”
Classes will meet on Tuesdays 11am – 1pm
30th Oct, 6th Nov, 13th Nov, 27th Nov, 4th Dec & 11th Dec.
The fee for this 6-week course is £100.00.
Book your place by email, or call us on 01206 824050
Into Darkness
A 6 week Course with Andrew Reynolds
Mondays 7pm – 9pm from 29th October
Wivenhoe Bookshop
Classes will meet on Mondays 7pm – 9pm
29th Oct, 5th Nov, 12th Nov, 26th Nov, 3rd Dec & 10th Dec
The fee for this 6-week course is £100.00.
Book your place by email, or call us on 01206 824050
About the Course
From best-selling novels to blockbuster movies and popular TV dramas, dark themes abound and it’s not surprising. If you think of your favourite stories, you will be hard pressed to find one that doesn’t feature some kind of adversity and the desire to overcome it. The greater the adversity the more we feel compelled to keep turning pages, to keep listening or watching. Into Darkness explores the dingiest recesses of your imagination to create compelling scenes, memorable characters and despicable antagonists.
We’ll examine the art of writing drama, conflict and action. We’ll learn how to create exciting plots and how to bring human suffering to the page. Will good prevail in the end? That will be up to you.
There will be a homework of up to 500 words each week, so you can put what you learn into practice and then share your creativity with the group. All you need bring is a notepad, a pen and good humour. No torches are required.
Classes will meet on Mondays 7pm – 9pm
29th Oct, 5th Nov, 12th Nov, 26th Nov, 3rd Dec & 10th Dec
The fee for this 6-week course is £100.00.
Book your place by email, or call us on 01206 824050
About Word After Word
Wivenhoe Bookshop are now hosting creative writing courses in partnership with Word After Word. Tutors Andrew Reynolds and Fi Mason will be offering sessions on a range of topics including crime & thriller writing, introductory creative writing, myth & magic, life writing and more.
Tutor Fi Mason
Fiona Mason MA is a writer and poet. A compulsive scribbler since childhood, being widowed in her forties was the catalyst for deciding it was time to take her writing more seriously. Her first book, 36 Hours, is a memoir about the death of her first husband, written whilst completing an MA in Creative & Life Writing at Goldsmiths, where she worked closely with Blake Morrison. It was shortlisted for the Pat Kavanagh prize.
Fi’s passion is supporting others on their creative journey to unlock their potential, in writing and in life. Her writing and teaching practice extend to writing for wellbeing and coaching for writers and she’s an RD1st/CAW Accredited Coach.
Fi co-founded Word After Word in 2016 with fiction writer, Andrew L Reynolds, to share a love of writing and language with others. They create and deliver creative writing courses and retreats in England and in Spain.
Andrew Reynolds
Andrew L Reynolds, M.A. is a fiction writer. His most recent work, a speculative fiction thriller set in a near-future London, was written whilst completing a novel writing MA at City University.
Writing has always been his guilty pleasure, and Andrew has a life-long love of all things crime, thriller, sci-fi and fantasy. Everything from books to cinema to computer games and tabletop role-playing became lessons in storytelling.
In the intervening years his primary work has been as a singer, lyricist, top-line songwriter and voice coach. As a lyricist he discovered a passion for poetry, working as a voice coach fulfilled his desire to help others to develop their potential and his experience as performer has helped him to become an engaging speaker and teacher.
Since completing his MA Andrew has been working with poet and life-writer, Fiona Mason to create and deliver creative writing courses and retreats with Word after Word, both in England and in Spain.
PREVIOUS COURSES
Myth & Magic – Writing Legends, Fairytales & The Supernatural
A 6 week course with Andrew Reynolds
3pm-5pm from Saturday 17th Feb
Wivenhoe Bookshop
Classes will meet on 17th Feb, 24th Feb, 3rd Mar, 10th Mar, 17th Mar & 24th March.
Book your place by email, or call us on 01206 824050
From Lord of the Rings to Game of Thrones, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, Dracula, Twilight, or even World War-Z, the myths and fairytales of the past continue to inspire much of our most beloved fiction.
On this 6-week course we venture into imagined other worlds on a quest to understand how and why these stories work. You will journey from urban settings and into mythical lands, discovering cultures, confronting horrors and developing incredible powers. In the end, you’ll return with the knowledge and tools of a storyteller, ready to pen your own fantastical tale.
Week 1: Fell Beasts & Wondrous Magic – We begin by looking at ancient myths from the Greeks, Vikings and Celts. How did they influence the fairytales that followed them and how can we draw on these and real historic events to inspire our own creations?
Week 2: The World Not As We Know It – What if magic and monsters really exist? We look at how the fantastical and the supernatural can be integrated into familiar settings.
Week 3: Through The Looking Glass – Stepping from one world into another. We’ll explore how writers create mythical places and how to go about writing what you cannot know.
Week 4: The Cultural Mirror – Elves, Dwarves, Wizards & Giants. We’ll learn about how writers create fantastical peoples, rich in their own histories, languages, beliefs and social norms.
Week 5: Things That Go Bump – Witchcraft, voodoo, ghosts and monsters – what are the things of your nightmares? How can you confront these compelling horrors and bring them to the page?
Week 6: A Legend Begins – From quest to saga, we’ll explore how you can use what you’ve learnt to develop your own epic tales.
Each week there will be a short homework, so you can put into practice what you’ve learnt, and there will be an opportunity to share your work in a supportive and constructive environment.
The fee for this 6 week course is £100.00.
Book your place by email, or call us on 01206 824050
Get Writing – An Introduction To Creative Writing
A 6 week Course with Andrew Reynolds
7pm – 9pm from Thursday 25th January
Wivenhoe Bookshop
Book your place by email, or call us on 01206 824050
Classes will meet on the 25th Jan, the 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd Feb, and the 1st Mar.
Get Writing is all about encouraging you to develop your own creative writing. Each week we’ll look at an aspect of writing that will help you to express your ideas, memories and stories on the page. Exercises and short homeworks will give you a chance to put into practice what you learn and you’ll have an opportunity to share your work in a supportive and constructive environment.
By the end of this course, you will have gained a solid understanding of the main skills writers employ in order to communicate with their readers. You’ll have acquired plenty of ideas about how you can continue your writing journey and whatever you choose to do next, and you’ll have a strong foundation to build on.
Week 1: Choosing Your Voice – We look at the choices writers need to make before they put pen to paper; the when and where of the narration, and how tense and point of view can change the feel of a piece of writing.
Week 2: Guiding The Mind’s Eye – The art of description – we’ll discover how writers bring objects, places and people alive on the page, how a single detail can communicate more than any list of attributes, and how language can be played with to conjure almost anything in the imaginations of our readers.
Week 3: Whose Story Is It? – Without characters, there would be no stories. In this lesson we not only learn how to create fictional characters, but also how to bring real people to the page. We learn how these characters play an essential role in driving any narrative forward.
Week 4: Character Dialogue – Ever listened to a conversation and wondered what it would look like in a book? Dialogue is one of the most powerful tools a writer has, yet it can be a difficult art to master. Here you’ll learn some great tips to put you on the right track.
Week 5: Killing Darlings – Earnest Hemingway once said, “write drunk, edit sober.” At some point every writer needs to edit their work. One of the hardest things is knowing when a piece of treasured text is enhancing a piece of writing, or detracting from it. Here we look at how you should go about editing and how to remain sane through the process.
Week 6: Keep Writing! – We finish with a look at how you can develop your own writing practice, so you can decide upon what your next steps will be.
Classes will meet on the 25th Jan, the 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd Feb, and the 1st Mar.
The fee for this 6 week course is £100.00.
Book your place by email, or call us on 01206 824050
Student Testimonials
“Very inspiring and informative.”
“Well-structured, prepared and delivered with humour and sensitivity.”
“A teacher whose love for writing shines through.”
Book your place by email, or call us on 01206 824050
PREVIOUS COURSES
From best-selling novels to blockbuster movies and popular TV dramas, dark themes abound and it’s not surprising. If you think of your favourite stories, you will be hard pressed to find one that doesn’t feature some kind of adversity and the desire to overcome it. The greater the adversity the more we feel compelled to keep turning pages, to keep listening or watching. Into Darkness explores the dingiest recesses of your imagination to create compelling scenes, memorable characters and despicable antagonists.
We’ll examine the art of writing drama, conflict and action. We’ll learn how to create exciting plots and how to bring human suffering to the page. Will good prevail in the end? That will be up to you.
Week 1: Creating the scene of a crime
Week 2: Establishing a memorable protagonist
Week 3: Revealing the evil adversary
Week 4: Building drama and conflict
Week 5: Using twists and turns
Week 6: Bearing witness to atrocity
Week 7: Overcoming a monster
Week 8: Consequences and loose ends
