workshops
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The Poetry School has a fine new website and a new programme for the new season. I’m joining the school’s roster of tutors. It’s quite an honour and somewhat daunting, as it includes a good number of the finest, most distinctive poets writing in the UK, among them several of my fellow Salt authors. I’m
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I’ve been toying with the idea of running a regular evening poetry workshop based in Linlithgow, perhaps starting next year, but I’d like to gauge whether there would be any takers for it before I make any hard and fast plans. Linlithgow is very easily accessible by train from Edinburgh, Glasgow and the metropolis of
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The reason for the shortness of breathing space mentioned in the previous post was, of course, Linlithgow Book Festival. LBF is now in its fourth year and simply going from strength to strength. This year, I was nowhere near as involved in organising and running it as I was the previous two but, aside from
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It’s just over a week to Linlithgow Book Festival 2009. The festival has managed to attract another great line-up on the usual funding shoestring, so please support it. I’ll be running a workshop on the Saturday morning, compering the open mic event on the Sunday evening and reading along with Jane McKie, Alistair Findlay, Douglas
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Yes, it was a busy weekend. After the Golden Hour kneesings-up, it was off to Glasgow on Saturday for the Merchant City Festival writing conference. I wasn’t able to catch much of the event outside of my workshop and reading, but I did hear some of the panel discussion and contribute to the ensuing lively
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My workshop at the 2nd Annual Merchant City Festival Writing, Literature and Cultural Conference* is set for 2:15 pm. Details are below; you can view the full programme at the link above. 2:15pm – 3:30pm, Fressh Cafe and Coffee Shop Cooking in the kitchen: ANDREW PHILIP, author of the collection The Ambulance Box, Highly Commended by
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Oscar’s in the air this weather: from Katy Evans-Bush’s poems about him and Henry James, through her post the other day about his poetry criticism* and, of course, the new film of The Picture of Dorian Gray to the theme Merchant City Festival writers conference, taken from an essay of his, “The Decay of Lying”.
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My first event on the Saturday at StAnza was Bill Manhire’s masterclass: a one-off workshop with six writers selected from among a batch of submissions plus an audience. I was in the audience, not having submitted anything. Manhire was warm and engaging while still being quite thorough. As he pointed out, there was no time
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A busy weekend ahead with this year’s Linlithgow Book Festival kicking off on Friday. I’m particularly looking forward to the workshop I’m running and to Alistair Findlay’s reading on Sunday. Alistair is one of Scotland’s sharpest voices and a hugely entertaining reader. He’s an unusually political writer for this era and can be a bitingly
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October is shaping up to be a busy month. Not only is there the HappenStance reading at St Mungos Mirrorball in Glasgow on Thursday the 2nd, but I’ll be reading for InkLight, a student creative writing society at St Andrews University on Monday the 20th. The venue for the latter isn’t confirmed yet, so more
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I jumped into the car first thing yesterday morning and zipped up the road to St Andrew’s for my fix of StAnza 2008, listening to The Guardian CD of great 20th century poets on the way to get me in the mood. My first event was the masterclass in translation with Helmut Haberkamm and Fitzgerald
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Things are coming together for the Orkney trip. Besides the reading with Christine De Luca and local Orkney writers, I’ll be leading a workshop for an S1 class (non-Scots read 12-year-olds) at Kirkwall Grammar School on the Friday morning (an 8.50 start–gulp!). Should be fun, although the last time I was in an S1 class
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Having lauded Fiona Sampson’s Guardian Unlimited workshop (which I have failed to complete), I thought I should mention her choice of the resulting poems. It forms a nice little compendium of significantly different approaches to the practice of listening–a clear demonstration that the workshop exercise is a good one, I think. There’s much to learn
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I’ve been trying out the exercise in Fiona Sampson‘s Guardian poetry workshop. For various reasons, I’ve stopped halfway through and will have to do the rest another day but, to my surprise, step 2 was such fun it re-enlivened my sheer, giggling delight in language. That Heinekening was particularly welcome after a drudgy morning of
Amy Jo Philip 