Plus workshops, slams etc

Creative Writing Course

Liverpool, January 12
(Deadline for enrolling)
More Writing by Women for Women:
Auto/Biography, Crisis, Creativity

A course in Liverpool by Val Walsh

10 weekly meetings from
Tuesday 20 January 7-9pm
126 Mount Pleasant, The University of Liverpool
(opposite the Metropolitan Cathedral)
This course will deepen participants understanding of the relation between women’s lives and women’s writing. It emphasises the diversity and creativity of women’s experience, which will be further explored through discussion and creative writing.We will use a mix of whole group and small group work, as well as individual tasks. For the purposes of students’ own creative writing on the course (e.g. individual writing tasks), no distinction will be made between auto/biographical writing and ‘fiction’.
Whether you have lots of experience as a reader and writer or little experience but a burning desire to get started, this course will offer a supportive and stimulating context for your next steps.
Val Walsh is an experienced tutor and facilitator, and a published writer and poet.
Fees: £60 | £45 if you are a retirement pensioner over the age of 60, or full-time student; £24 if you receive Job Seekers’ Allowance, Working Tax Credit, Council Tax Benefit, Income Support, Housing Benefit, Disabled Person’s Tax Credit, or Incapacity Benefit, or you are an unwaged dependant of someone in receipt of one of these benefits.
How to enrol: Advance enrolment is essential by Monday 12 January. You may enrol and pay by debit/credit card by telephoning 0151-794 6900. Alternatively, you can complete an enrolment form (from the CE prospectus or on the CE website) – and send it to us with a cheque for the course fee.
Credit for your Courses
This course is part of the University’s accredited Continuing Education programme. Continuing Education courses offer credit points which are nationally-recognised under the Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme. Credits are awarded for attendance at a course and for satisfactory completion of assignments, and may be accumulated towards a University award or as evidence of personal achievement for vocational purposes.
You can gain 10 credits for completion of this course, a module of the Certificate in Higher Education (Creative Writing)

London, December 16
Doors open 6.30 Reading 7.00

Last Chance to read for the bluechrome anthology and be published alongside at least 10 major poets who will also be contributing to the anthology inc. UA Fanthorpe, Fiona Sampson, Marilyn Hacker , Penelope Shuttle, Peter Porter to name but a few. )

As it is the last session this year there will be extra 5 minute spots - in fact, we’re throwing the whole evening over to

Poets from the Floor
to be considered for the bluechrome anthology

Lumen
88 Tavistock Place W.C.1
Tubes: Russell Square, Kings Cross, St Pancras.

Entry £4/£3
Wine
Proceeds to COLD WEATHER SHELTER


Lancaster, December 19

Spotlight Club
www.spotlightlancaster.co.uk

@ The Yorkshire House, Parliament St. Lancaster

Happy Birthday Spotlight !Celebrate Spotlight’s 13th Birthday
at the 150th Spotlight
With:
Monkeyrack Writers

Ron Baker - Prose
Ron became a full-time (if unpaid and poverty-stricken) writer and writing promoter after winning
a North West Arts writing bursary in 1997. Since then he has published poetry, short stories and writte
for the stage. He has also taught creative writing via the internet for Lancaster University. His last writing venture
was a novel (as yet unpublished) ‘Understanding Stanley’. He has been organising Spotlight since he helped Noah launch the Ark.

Simon Baker - Prose
Simon has become a regular performer at Spotlight over the last few years. Starting tentativelyat the Open Mic he has progressed to become acknowledged as a witty and erudite observer of the quirks and foibles of modern times through his appearances as a regular Spotlight compere
and through his prose and poetry.

Mollie Baxter - Prose
Mollie completed the MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University in 2003. Since then has had many accolades for her work, and seen it published in Flax Books, The Quiet Feather, Scribe, Pitch, Lune Fiction
and on the phone-book.com. She has been shortlisted and won prizes in several sort story competitions.
She now teaches Creative writing at the University of Cumbria.

Iain Colley - Poetry
Iain has been contributing stories, poems and articles to magazines and newspapers for many years and has a string of competition successes to his name - including winning the prestigious London Review of Books ‘Poet of The Year’ competition in 2002. An accomplished performer of his work he was among those who appeared at the very first Spotlight on 15th December 1995.

Sarah Fiske - Prose
Sarah says ‘I need to write. It feels integral to who I am. The initial stimulus is often observational - perhaps a worried face in a crowd, an odd look or action between strangers on a train, a location which is stunning, seedy or simply dull may lodge in my brain. Quite often the impetus is abstract -
a vague feeling or amorphous shape in my mind, which takes many false starts before it forms into something. I never know, when I start, where
a piece of writing will go. If I did it would bore me.’ Sarah also teaches creative writing, is an actress and alongside
Ron Baker has be co-organising Spotlight since Noah launched the Ark.

Norman Hadley - Poetry
Norman is a mathematician who spends his days designing mammoth engines to make ships skip over the foam like stones thrown by dads showing off. Based in Garstang his evenings are spent trawling through his rhyming dictionary for ‘orange’. Lacking any Arts qualification beyond his ‘O’ level, he’s best described (by himself!) as a recovering geek. Norman says he once stumbled on the word ‘eclectic’ in his dictionary and thought it a good basis for a writing style.

His poems hop from tragic to comic to sentimental weird in the flick of a metaphor, aspiring to the pigeonhole marked ‘un-pigeon-hole-able’.

Ron Scowcroft - Poetry
Ron’s poetry was selected twice this year for the Guardian Books website. His work has recently been published by Poetry Nottingham, highly commended in the City of Derby competition and longlisted for the Bridport prize. Expect anything rich and strange from urban myth to dream cats, parrot obsessed painters to screaming planets.
Ron’s post-grad research into fantasy and visual art has informed the cinematic qualities of his published writing and led to
collaborations with UCLAN based artists John M. Morrison and Jayne Simpson.

Simon Unsworth - Prose
Simon is the newest member of Monkeyrack and writes horror and fantasy fiction. This will be his first appearance at Spotlight.

Plus Music:
The New Potato Scene is a popular pop/rock teenage band (by which they mean, the majority of their school have now seen them play!). They do a mixture of a variety of covers and their own interesting, quirky pop songs.
George Webster, Chris Everett, Ben Gladwin and Adam Robey form the band who made their Spotlight debut back in September.

Compere: John Freeman

Doors Open 8.30pm
Admission £3/£2 (conc)
email: spotlightclub@btinternet.com

Lancaster Spotlight is funded by Arts Council England and supported by Lancashire County Council and Lancaster City Council. Spotlight works in association with litfest.

Slams

Is it a contest? Is it an event?
Well, usually local and just for one night, so they’ll be going in here rather than under competitions…

Liverpool, December 16
Hammer and Tongue presents a one-off Liverpool Special at Melo Melo (40 Slater Street) on Tuesday 16th December featuring special guests, Mark Gwynne Jones and Excentral Tempest and an open mic slam. £3/2 (concessions available to anyone who asks, £1 for slammers). Hosted by AngrySam, Liverpool Slam Champion. Hammer and Tongue are one of the biggest promoters of Slam Poetry in the UK, making champions from everyday people, handing the power of judgement to the poets’ peers, creating a democratic cutting-edge spoken word culture, reaching out to communities, organising workshops in schools, universities and prisons. “the best gigs in Europe, hands down” Buddy Wakefield, 2x U.S Slam Champion. www.hammerandtongue.co.uk
Mark Gwynne Jones, the bard of Matlock Bath, treads the thin line between sane and deranged bringing uniquely brilliant performance styles and some of the finest poetry out there, ‘Mark Gwynne Jones is to poetry what The League of Gentlemen is to television scheduling.’ - The Independent Excentral Tempest is poet and rapper from South London. A young, massively talented woman whose politically charged lyrics and passionate delivery have been making a name for herself on the underground ‘conscious’ hiphop scene and as a rising star of UK performance poetry.

The Open Slam will have 8 places available on the night on a first-come-first-served basis. Slammers will have 3.5 minutes to impress 5 randomly selected judges in the audience in a friendly-but-fun competitive 1 round format
Contact Sam for further details. angrysam@hammerandtongue.co.uk07853 081767