Arvon English writing course

[southernsoftie]

Anyone's child been on one of these and if so what did you/ they think of it?

If you go to the creative writing section (it's hard to fine - it's in In the Club section), I know a poster called MmeGuillotine has done one of their courses. She mentions it under the post about doing an MA in creative writing. I am also thinking of doing one, although it might be next year as I might not be able to fit it in this year. Which one are you looking at? I know they have a good reputation.

I did a couple of them when I was 16/17, at the Lumb Bank centre.

Mine may have been slightly different, as we were all competition winners, but we had a great time! They were poetry focussed, and everyone was between 16 and 20, just as background.

Each time, we had two resident poets (the judges of the competition, who we'd all actually heard of), and a visiting poet. The resident poets lived with us the entire week, ate with us and were around for general inspiration/discussion. We were set exercises, went through poems one-to-one with the residents, and had a workshop with the visiting poet. We also made an anthology, and did a mini poetry reading. Plus, plenty of time and space to write on our own, and a great little poetry library.

One of the best experiences of my life, honestly.

Sorry for late replies, thanks for answers so far. DS is in Y7 and I think it will be Lumb Bank he has been invited to go to. It is organised through school so they will presumably fill all the spaces. My worry is that DS (who is young for his age) may not get as much out of it at this age as he could later on. That said, he loves writing stories, albeit any set for homework can be agonisingly slow to get down on paper, and it may be a good chance for him to start to develop his own style (or is still too young for that?). It also runs for nearly a week so I am a bit worried about him being away for so long, not something that he is concerned about!

Mahraih, do you think you would have got as much out of it at an earlier age?

Thanks again.