Writing about real lives and experiences - your own, or someone else’s - is rewarding but also daunting. How do you make your story compelling, convincing and accurate? How do you fill the gaps? What if there’s too much information? How do you keep the reader reading, without the other real people in your story getting upset? Or does it matter if they are? What if the life you’re writing is longer ago? Or should you - as others might suggest - be writing it as a novel?
In this practical, day-long workshop, we will take advantage of limited numbers to dig deep, exploring ways to tackle your project and thinking about what forms, tools and resources will be most useful. We’ll think about the creative and research processes you might use, get our hands in the clay with short, exploratory exercises, and look at some examples of exciting life writing by a variety of contemporary writers.
You should go away with many more tools for working with your story, a clearer sense of how to use them, and even more excitement and enthusiasm for the next stage. For experienced writers as well as beginners. We’ll end the day with a Q&A with guest speaker, Managing Director of Little, Brown & Abacus, Richard Beswick.
Workshop Leader:
Emma Darwin’s new memoir, This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin, was published in February 2019 and the Daily Mail described it as “a fascinating journey…a masterclass”. Her debut novel, The Mathematics of Love, is possibly the only novel ever nominated for both the Commonwealth Writers Best First Book, and Romantic Novelists’ Association Novel of the Year; her second novel. A Secret Alchemy, was a Sunday Times bestseller as well as forming the major part of her PhD in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths. Emma’s blog This Itch of Writing gave rise to Get Started in Writing Historical Fiction which publisher Scott Pack describes as “essential reading”. She has taught for the Open University, now chiefly mentors and tutors individual writers, and is a regular guest lecturer and speaker at university creative writing departments and writers’ conferences.
Workshop Special Guest:
Richard Beswick, is the Managing Director of Little, Brown & Abacus. Abacus is the paperback imprint for Little, Brown books and has an impressive roster of award-winning, bestselling fiction authors, including Donna Tartt; Celeste Ng; Alexander McCall Smith; Beryl Bainbridge; Anita Shreve and Chigozie Obioma among many others. Little, Brown/Abacus also has a hugely successful non-fiction list, with authors including Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom; David Sedaris; Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs; and the Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff.