The Novel Studio (formerly known as The Certificate in Novel Writing) will be running at City University London from autumn 2012. This will be a three-term, year-long course, that aims to guide fifteen selected students through the various aspects of writing a novel, as well as preparing them for work with agents and editors.
If you think you or someone you know might be interested, I encourage you to find out more from the City University website. Or if you have any questions you think I could answer, do please get in touch using the Contact Emily tab on the home screen.
I was so pleased to learn recently that my short story “The End and the Start” has been long-listed in the Ink Tears 2011 competition. If you are unfamiliar with the work of Ink Tears, I recommend you check out their website.
As Emma Claire Sweeney and I judged all of the entries anonymously, the identity of the winner and all those who made the shortlist had been a secret to us until today, so it’s great to be able to put a name to such an engagingly written story.
Congratulations also to Viccy Adams, Terry Edge, Sarah Evans, Hilary Fennell, Caroline Healy, Sophie Mackintosh and Katherine Matthews, the seven runners-up.
For more details about the contest and the judging process, please visit the Circle of Missé website.
Emma and I really enjoyed reading all of the shortlisted entries, and I know I’d definitely love to see anyone who entered on my course at Missé in April.
Image I took of the Circle of Missé house from the garden during my stay in 2011
My good friend the writer Emma Claire Sweeney and I have been asked to be the judges for Circle of Missé’s first ever writing contest. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’ll be teaching the course A Writer Progresses at Missé in April, so this represents just another chance to become involved in some of the great work that goes on there.
Here are the details for anyone who is interested:
Win a Week of Mentoring in France to Further Develop Your Fiction or Non-fiction Book
Submit a 2,000-5,000 word excerpt of your novel, memoir, short story collection or nonfiction book-in-progress for a chance to win a free place on one of Circle of Misse’s Spring 2012 ‘A Writer Progresses’ week-long mentored courses where you will be able to work directly with a writer and teacher to further develop your book and take it to the next level. Runners-up receive an invitation to attend one of the two courses at a deeply discounted rate to further develop their books. All entries receive 10% off any writing course offered by Circle of Misse in 2012.
Corner of the gardens at Missé. I took this picture last year during an afternoon wander.
Having had such a wonderful stay at Circle of Missé in 2011, I was delighted to be asked back for a second year. The location itself with its stone farmhouse walls, its garden vines humming with bees, the surrounding sunflower fields, is one that really inspires creativity. To add to this, there’s great food and wine, and Aaron and Wayne’s sense of hospitality. Really, what more could a writer want?
As usual, I’ll be doing a week’s teaching for the first half of my stay there and then spending the following week as the writer in residence, giving me the chance to focus exclusively on my own writing. From 2 to 8 April I’ll be teaching the course A Writer Progresses.
Open to all skill levels, A Writer Progresses is for writers who already have a project underway, either in the form of some completed draft work or just a strong set of ideas about where you hope to be heading. During the week participants spend at Missé, there will be opportunities for one-to-one feedback and group workshopping, writing exercises directly related to the projects individual group members are working on, discussions about the craft of writing, and solitary writing time too.
One real strong point of the Missé experience, in addition to the fact that everyone gets very well looked after while they’re there, is the small class sizes. The maximum numbers allowed for each course is always capped very low – something that guarantees lots of individual attention for everyone in the group.
This being the case, early booking for the week is advisable, particularly because reserving your place before 31 December will allow you to take advantage of the 10% Early Bird Discount.
For more information, I recommend you visit the Circle of Missé website. If you think you might be interested, but still have some questions, do send me a message using the Contact Emily tab above. Alternatively, you can get in touch with Circle of Missé directly, through their Any Questions page.
In addition to my on-going teaching work for the Open University and New York University in London, I’ll be leading a series of creative writing workshops at the Bishopsgate Institute from January to March 2012.
These supportive, but challenging, sessions will run on a fortnightly basis. They are suitable for writers of all prose genres – fiction and non-fiction, and they’ll focus on group workshopping, discussion and writing exercises designed to help you build up your practical skills
For more information, please either get in touch with the venue directly or send me a query using the Contact Emily tab above.
This will be my first time teaching at the Bishopsgate Institute and I’m really looking forward to getting to know my new group.
As a newish member of NAWE (National Association of Writers in Education) I was keen to attend their annual conference this year.
In addition to going to several inspiring talks and workshops given by other writers, I also had the chance to read a paper of my own as part of a New York University in London panel made up of the fiction writer Emma Claire Sweeney, the playwright Julia Pascal and myself.
Our subject was “Cross-cultural creative writing for study abroad” and we used our session to share some of the strategies we’ve developed for teaching writing to international students who are here in the UK as part of their university studies.
Having never been to a NAWE conference before, I have to say that for me the whole weekend was a great experience. I really enjoyed getting to meet some of the other conference delegates, and I’d like to thank the writers and writing tutors who attended our talk. I hope you found it useful.
Emily Midorikawa 