Workshops

I went to a writing workshop yesterday, to observe essentially and support Commonword who had arranged the thing. It was with Bernadine Everisto and she was really good. There were lots of Shirley’s young Identity crew there and it was great to see them respond and write outside of what they would normally pen.

What was most interesting for me personally, was the absolute joy I got out of doing the exercises. The freedom to just write anything and not to be the one setting the workout was great. I think that all writers should attend workshops just for the hell of it. Just to remind ourselves of where we’re coming from and to surprise ourselves by the amount of stuff we can churn out on tap – especially needed when you’ve been slogging over a single chapter that won’t happen, no matter what you do to it.

So that was a nice introduction for me to this years Manchester Literature Festival, and the reading at St Ann’s Church was great too, although I was charged with taking photo’s for Bernadine and either I was crap at it or she is constantly on the move! I think I managed a couple of good shots though.