This retreat is for writers who need time and space to move forward with a long-form prose project. Maybe you’re stuck halfway through, have all the ideas but not enough written down, or are just finding that there aren’t enough hours in a day?
We’ll have a daily writing workshop to highlight specific techniques and editorial strategies, and to consider extracts of your work in progress. Each writer will also have an individual tutorial during the week to discuss how to keep going in order to achieve a finished draft. We’ll also consider working towards publication.
 |
Tutor: Zoë Strachan – writer Zoë Strachan is the author of three novels: Ever Fallen in Love, Spin Cycle and Negative Space. Ever Fallen in Love was shortlisted for the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards and the Green Carnation Prize and nominated for the London Book Awards. Negative Space won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year Award. Zoë’s short stories and essays have appeared in various magazines and anthologies and been broadcast on BBC Radio. She has been UNESCO City of Literature writer-in-residence at the National Museum of Scotland, a Hermann Kesten Stipendiaten, a Hawthornden Fellow, and a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellow. In 2011 she undertook a British Council visiting fellowship at the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa and in 2012 she was visiting faculty at Dartmouth College. Works for theatre include Panic Patterns (with Louise Welsh, Citizen’s Theatre and BBC Radio Scotland) and Old Girls (which opened the 2009/10 season of A Play, a Pie and a Pint at Oran Mor). Her short opera Sublimation (with composer Nick Fells) toured Scotland in May 2010 with Scottish Opera before going to Cape Town, South Africa in November 2010. The Lady from the Sea, a full-length opera composed by Craig Armstrong and based on the play by Ibsen, premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2012, where it won a Herald Angel Award. Between 2011 and 2014 she co-edited New Writing Scotland, Scotland’s principle forum for poetry and short fiction, and in 2014 she curated a new anthology of LGBT writing from Scotland, Out There (Freight) – the first of its kind in over a decade. She teaches Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. www.zoestrachan.com / @zoestrachan Photo: Ajamu |
||||||||||
 |
Guest, Wednesday evening: Andrew McMillan – Poet Andrew McMillan was born in South Yorkshire in 1988; his debut collection physical was the first ever poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award. The collection also won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, a Somerset Maugham Award (2016), an Eric Gregory Award (2016) and a Northern Writers’ award (2014). It was shortlisted the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2016, the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Roehampton Poetry Prize and the Polari First Book Prize. It was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Autumn 2015. Most recently physical has been translated into Norwegian (Aschehoug, 2017) and a bi-lingual French edition is due from Grasset next year. His second collection, playtime, will be published by Jonathan Cape in 2018. He is senior lecturer at the Manchester Writing School at MMU and lives in Manchester. Photo: Urzsula Soltys |
||||||||||
| PRICES | Fee includes all day and evening tutored workshop sessions, readings, accommodation and full board (not including alcohol).
Single – En-suite room £760 |
||||||||||
| TO BOOK | £150 deposit payable on booking by PayPal, bank transfer or cheque, to secure place, balance due six weeks before start of course. Please see Terms and Conditions. |
||||||||||
| INCLUDED |
|
||||||||||
| WHAT TO BRING |
|
||||||||||
| START TIME | Please arrive between 4:00 pm and 6:00 pm on Monday 3rd September 2018. | ||||||||||
| END TIME | After breakfast, 10:00 am on Saturday 8th September 2018. | ||||||||||
| LOCATION | The Garsdale Retreat, Clough View, Garsdale Head, Sedbergh, Cumbria LA10 5PW
Nearest station: Garsdale – direct line from Leeds. |
Courses
The Garsdale Retreat provides an inspiring place to develop as a writer. Our courses offer opportunities for new, emerging and experienced writers. The tutors, all professional writers, lead workshops and also give one-to-one tutorials to help the individual student. In the remote and beautiful setting of The Yorkshire Dales, The Garsdale Retreat gives a wonderful opportunity to escape from the daily stresses of life and to draw inspiration from fellow students, tutors and the landscape itself.
All courses start on Monday afternoon, arrival time 4.00 – 6.00pm and finish after breakfast on Saturday, 10.00am
Course Structure
Although there will be slight variations, according to the type of course, students can generally expect the following outline:
Each day begins with a morning workshop at 9.30am where students explore particular aspects of the chosen genre and take part in writing exercises to further their understanding and expertise. Tutors also write alongside the students, sharing and developing work with participants. The immediacy of hearing or reading an expert’s emerging work gives invaluable insight and inspiration into the art of writing. All students have opportunities to share their work with the tutor and fellow writers in a safe, supportive and nurturing environment in which individual work is respected and confidence developed.
There is a mid-morning coffee break and the session finishes at lunchtime (1.00pm)
After lunch, participants are free to do whatever they like, such as: relax, go for walks, enjoy The Dales, draw, paint, read or work on individual writing projects.
All students have at least one individual tutorial which usually takes place in the early evening after tea and homemade cake.
Each evening there is an after-dinner event. The precise nature of this varies according to the type of course but participants can typically expect a tutor reading on Tuesday followed by a reading from a guest writer on the Wednesday evening. There is an informal activity on Thursday such as a student ‘open-mic’ night, or a tutor devised activity. On Friday, students and tutor take part in a reading of their work from the course-produced anthology.
All courses end after breakfast on Saturday.
Poetry Course Anthology
An integral part of poetry courses is the production of an anthology of writing produced in the week. It is, of course, accepted that work may not be completely polished and there is an element of work-in-progress about it. However, the aim of the anthology is to reflect a flavour of the work accomplished on the course by both tutor and participants and to provide them with an attractive record of their time at Garsdale. The Retreat stores copies of anthologies in the library, providing pleasure and inspiration for future students.
