Writers invited to make a drama out of a crisis at a creative writing course in Bristol
Katherine Mansfield
What happens when you put a playwright and a short story writer in the same room and blend their skills?
In the case of Sheila Hannon, creative director and co-founder of Show of Strength theatre company and Rebecca Lloyd, creative writing tutor and the winner of the Bristol Short Story Prize 2008, you get the opportunity to learn from two of the South West’s great writing talents.
The pair will be collaborating to run Making a Drama out of a Crisis, a two-day creative writing course at the Southville centre, Bristol, on August 8th and 9th 2009.
The third member of the team is Katherine Mansfield, deceased in 1923, whose short stories will provide the inspiration for the course.
The creative writing course
With Sheila and Rebecca’s guidance, you will take characters from two different classics by short story writer Katherine Mansfield and introduce them to each other, writing new dialogues for them and finally turning the dialogues into scripts.
“Katherine Mansfield was a remarkable woman,” Rebecca says. “She died at the age of 35, and in her life produced such beautiful stories that quite a few writers of the time, Virginia Woolf included, envied her ability. When Mansfield died, Woolf wrote of her, ‘I was jealous of her writing - the only writing I have ever been jealous of.”‘
The idea behind the course is to provide you with a shortcut to believable characters, while paying homage to a great but little known short story writer.
If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at scriptwriting, but wasn’t sure how to get started, this creative writing course could really help.
“Sometimes writers struggle to create convincing fictional characters, so ‘borrowing’ them can be a great way to get started and create dramatic scenes and situations,” Sheila says. “Characters that can take months to develop for a fictional work can then take just minutes to stand up and speak.”
Throughout the course you’ll receive input from Sheila, who has developed and produced work by more than 50 writers since 2006. She’s also written several dramas aired on Radio 4, including ‘Letters From Africa’ with Eleanor Bron and ‘The Female Husband’ with Sandi Toksvig.
Rebecca will provide a different viewpoint on creative writing, bringing with her a wealth of writing experience that has resulted in her being published by a large range of literary magazines. She teaches creative writing courses at the Grant Bradley Gallery and Borders Bookshop, Bristol.
Rebecca and Sheila collaborated previously on a series of workshops called Trading Local, for Show of Strength Theatre Company.
Poet Joanna Butler was one of the participants and says: “I got two really tips on my piece; one from Sheila and one from Rebecca, which really helped me to focus my writing.”
By the end of the Making a Drama out of a Crisis two-day workshop, you will have started a piece of dramatic writing you can take away and carry on working on at home.
Making a Drama out of a Crisis will take place on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th August 2009 at the Southville Centre, Beauley Road, Southville, Bristol, BS3 1QG
Taking part costs £89. To book, please email Rebecca on becca.lloyd@yahoo.co.uk (preferred) or call 0117 3771466
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