Start Writing: Raffaella Barker and Esther Freud

Start date 21-Sep-2013
Duration 2 days, 10am-4.00pm
Location London
Price £299.00 (inc VAT)

  • Course Description

    Do you want to write but somehow never get round to it? Do you have a story to tell but you don’t know where to begin? Have you started to write and ground to a halt? Do you love words and laugh out loud at the funny things people say and do? Do you wish you knew how to take all this and put it on the page? How do you begin?

     
    Don’t wring your hands in frustration, the answers are right here. It could be the easiest thing in the world to pick up a pen and begin to write, yet somehow it seems the hardest. And most tantalising: anyone with an abandoned novel or short story gathering dust knows that writing unlocks the imagination and lets the spirit soar.
     
    Help is at hand to reveal your potential.
     

  • What's Included

    In a two day workshop, best selling author Raffaella Barker will lead you through the labyrinth to find your voice. Using a combination of practical exercises and discussions, as well as excerpts from some great classic novels and short stories to illustrate the points covered, she will show you how to create characters, set up a story, devise a plot and give it the impetus to get to the end.

    The workshop environment takes the sting out of the fear of the blank page and participants will emerge from their weekend with a set of skills they didn’t know they had and some pieces of writing they can be proud of.

     
    Tea and cake and plenty of praise help make this weekend a lot of fun and fertile ground for the imagination.
     
    The course will include a guest seminar on Sunday 22 September with Esther Freud. 

  • Tutor Details

    Raffaella Barker began writing novels at around the time she began having children, and is the author of 9 of the former and the mother of 3 of the latter. The ticking taxi meter of time when the children were asleep or occupied was a great disciplining force out of which her writing grew. Her novels include the autobiographical Come and Tell Me Some Lies, and the best selling Hens Dancing and Summertime, the fictional diaries of slightly loopy mother and Georgette Heyer enthusiast Venetia Summers.  

     
    Her more recent novels, A Perfect Life and Poppyland continue to reflect on the depths and indeed the shallows of family life. She has taught creative writing for a number of years, and on many levels  including the highly acclaimed Arvon Foundation courses, and in workshops and one-to-one sessions. She also works as a newspaper columnist and feature writer.
     
     

  • More Information

    The course will take place from Saturday 21 September to Sunday 22 September inclusive at the Mumsnet Towers, Studio 6, Deane House Studios, Greenwood Place, Highgate Road, London NW5 1LB.

     
    Maximum number of students: 15 places, on a first-come basis.