Saturday, 7 December 2024 Contact us

You are Currently viewing Past Events, Click here to see upcoming 2024 Events

See 2024 Events
Jem-poster
Jem Poster
Sarah-burton
Sarah Burton

Creative Writing Course. Where do you get your ideas?

Jem Poster and Sarah Burton

Saturday, 25 March 2023

9:30am

1 day

Wadham College: Locke Access Centre

£90

This one-day course will explore our reasons for writing, and the resources available to the writer of fiction – memory, research and the creative imagination.

Whether you’re a beginner in creative writing or a more advanced writer looking for new ideas and inspiration, this event may be exactly what you need. Designed by two professional writers with long experience of teaching creative writing at university level, the programme will address the writer’s art and craft in ways both practical and thought-provoking, involving both writing and the discussion of writing. The focus will be primarily on fiction, but writers of poetry and creative non-fiction are likely to gain useful insights from the event.

This course can either be taken on its own or as in conjunction with the following day’s course, ‘A Sense of Place’.

The course has been devised with a group of 30 in mind; however, the presence of two tutors means that, apart from a short period at the beginning of the course and another at the end, the teaching will take place in groups of 15. Each group will have two sessions with each tutor. 

The sessions

9.30-11.00: Session 1. Why do we write? / What are our sources?
11.00-11.30: Coffee
11.30-1.00: Session 2. Working with memory
1.00-2.00: Lunch
2.00-3.30: Session 3: Working with the imagination
3.30-4.00: Tea
4.00-5.30: Session 4: How can research help our writing? / Drawing it all together

Session 1. Why do we write?/What are our sources?

There are many reasons for writing. We shall discuss these before breaking into two separate groups to address possible ways into a piece of writing.

Session 2. Working with memory

However far we move from our own experience, memory is likely to play a very significant role in our writing. This session will explore that role through a combination of discussion and practical work.

Session 3: Working with the imagination
Building on the work carried out in the previous session, we shall go on to discuss and experience the operation of the creative imagination.

Session 4: How can research help our writing?/Drawing it all together

The writer’s research can take many forms. In this session we shall discuss some of these and explore the pleasures – and pitfalls – of working with researched material, before the two sub-groups are drawn together for a final discussion of the day’s work.

The tutors

Jem Poster is emeritus professor of creative writing, Aberystwyth University. He is author of a collection of poetry, Brought to Light, and two novels, Courting Shadows and Rifling Paradise. Sarah Burton, founder and former director of Cambridge University’s MSt in creative writing, is the author of Impostors, A Double Life: A Biography of Charles and Mary Lamb and The Strange Adventures of H. Poster and Burton are co-authors of a handbook for fiction writers, The Book You Need to Read to Write the Book You Want to Write.

The Telegraph Festival media partner University of Oxford European Union Supported by the Delegation of the European Union to the UK Cultural Relations Platform Supporter of the festival's Voices of Europe programme Bodleian Libraries Festival cultural partner Oxford Martin School Festival ideas partner Oxford Mathematics Spanish Embassy The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture Cervantes Institute, London The Cervantes Institute, London Blackwell’s Festival on-site and online bookseller Symington Wines of the Douro Valley Compassion in World Farming Pasture to Plate Oxford Business College Where learning meets opportunity: education partners of the festival Old Bank Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Old Parsonage Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Oxford Brookes University Oxford International Centre for Publishing Critchleys Accountants to the festival Confucius Institute Voltaire Foundation Felicity Bryan Associates Goldmoney Properties Princeton University Press Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024 Oxford University Department for Continuing Education Jewish Book Week Partner of Oxford Literary Festival Jim Mellon Miles Young Tim and Marion Stevenson Martin and Elise Becket Smith Ian and Carol Sellars David Isaac Mary and Cecil Quillen Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture Other donors Yale University Press London New College New College founded 1379 Exeter College Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314 Worcester College Worcester College founded 1714 Lincoln College Lincoln College founded 1427 Trinity College Trinity College founded 1555 Magdalen College Magdalen College founded 1458 Reuben College Reuben College founded in 2019 Pusey House Founded 1884 Brasenose College Brasenose College founded in 1512 New Dutch Writing Human Ecology Project MACROVegan Bear Ram Elk Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design Racalia Olive Oil Olive oil from Sicily Paul Bloomfield Ltd University of Oxford Alumni Office Alumni Office The Sheldonian Theatre Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Oxford University Images Oxford University Images CAV Oxford The Litmus Partnership Schoolreaders Windrush Group The Oxford Times BBC Radio Oxford Local radio partner Conference Oxford Ox in a Box OX magazine
 

The Oxford Literary Festival sponsors, donors & partners

The Telegraph Festival media partner University of Oxford European Union Supported by the Delegation of the European Union to the UK Cultural Relations Platform Supporter of the festival's Voices of Europe programme Bodleian Libraries Festival cultural partner Oxford Martin School Festival ideas partner Oxford Mathematics Spanish Embassy The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture Cervantes Institute, London The Cervantes Institute, London Blackwell’s Festival on-site and online bookseller Symington Wines of the Douro Valley Compassion in World Farming Pasture to Plate Oxford Business College Where learning meets opportunity: education partners of the festival Old Bank Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Old Parsonage Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Oxford Brookes University Oxford International Centre for Publishing Critchleys Accountants to the festival Confucius Institute Voltaire Foundation Felicity Bryan Associates Goldmoney Properties Princeton University Press Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024 Oxford University Department for Continuing Education Jewish Book Week Partner of Oxford Literary Festival Jim Mellon Miles Young Tim and Marion Stevenson Martin and Elise Becket Smith Ian and Carol Sellars David Isaac Mary and Cecil Quillen Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture Other donors Yale University Press London New College New College founded 1379 Exeter College Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314 Worcester College Worcester College founded 1714 Lincoln College Lincoln College founded 1427 Trinity College Trinity College founded 1555 Magdalen College Magdalen College founded 1458 Reuben College Reuben College founded in 2019 Pusey House Founded 1884 Brasenose College Brasenose College founded in 1512 New Dutch Writing Human Ecology Project MACROVegan Bear Ram Elk Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design Racalia Olive Oil Olive oil from Sicily Paul Bloomfield Ltd University of Oxford Alumni Office Alumni Office The Sheldonian Theatre Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Oxford University Images Oxford University Images CAV Oxford The Litmus Partnership Schoolreaders Windrush Group The Oxford Times BBC Radio Oxford Local radio partner Conference Oxford Ox in a Box OX magazine