Summer of Prose: Creative Nonfiction
Summer is in full swing. People are creating memories
faster than you can say "cheese". What better way to preserve them
than with a true story?
No matter how many pictures we take, how many tweets
we post, or how many videos we film, memories, events, and people, just like
old photos, can be lost, forgotten, or misplaced. It’s true, a picture speaks a
thousand words, but nothing captures the depth and detail of a moment/memory like
a story. If you’re writing a personal essay and need help getting it into
shape, join us for summer of prose, an online summer writing camp.
Sessions are six weeks and run Sunday-Sunday
Price: £150. Payable upfront or £25 a week payable
each Sunday.
What is
it? An online creative writing course aimed to help you
develop a personal essay to submit to publications, perform, and/or inform a
larger collection. The course includes weekly writing prompts, tailored weekly
writing exercises and readings, and weekly feedback to help develop your personal
essay (up to 3,500 words) for your target audience.
Each Sunday, you will receive a writing prompt and
reading list tailored to your writing goals, development, and the piece you
submitted on registration. You will also be encouraged to submit writing weekly
and will receive constructive feedback via email.
Weekly Themes:
Week 1: Writing You, Character, Motivation
Week 2: It’s All in Your Head, Memory and Writing
Week 3: Telling your story, your way: Shape/structure,
Perspective, Ownership
Week 4: It was a Dark and Stormy Night, or was it?
Setting Place, Time
Week 5: Where did I leave my keys? Writing Place,
descriptions
Week 6: Editing and Exploring the Marketing: finding
publishing and performance opportunities
About
Me:
Yvonne
is an American writer living in Lancaster, UK. A writer of fiction and Creative
Nonfiction, her writing has been published in riverSedge, Assisi, Not
Somewhere Else But Here: A Contemporary Anthology of Women and Place, Welter,
Slices, and The Chesapeake Reader
Literary Journal.
Winner
of a Northern Writers Award in fiction (2017), her first novel, Remembered (forthcoming 2019), is the
story of an emancipated slave haunted by both the past and the present as she
struggles to lead her dying son home.
Yvonne’s practice-based research explores silence, legacies of slavery,
motherhood, and community. Her novel will be published by Dialogue Books of
Little, Brown Group (Hachette). Yvonne was shortlisted for the Words and Women
Competition (2017) and commended for children’s writing in the Faber Andlyn
BAME (FAB) Prize (2017).
Yvonne
is represented by the Elise Dillsworth agency and holds an MA in Writing (Dual
Concentration fiction and nonfiction) from Johns Hopkins University and a
Creative Writing PhD from Lancaster University. She is an Associate Lecturer at
Lancaster University and a Lecturer at University of Cumbria. Yvonne is a
creative producer, writer, and is co-founder and co-Director of North West
Literary Arts CIC.
Yvonne
is co-creator of the North West Literary Salon, a monthly literary event
featuring local writers, musicians and food; Stories at the Storey, a monthly
true-story open mic night providing a platform for new writing and creative
nonfiction since 2014, and Off the Page, interdisciplinary creative writing workshops
as well as founder of The Writing Life radio show.
The
organization aims to increase diversity in publishing and to build community
one story at a time.
**Optional features: Character Sketch: artist sketch
of main characters
**In-character reading: recording of actors reading
the work in character.
Ready to get started? Classes are ongoing. You can
start any week.
Email Yvonne at northwestliteraryarts@gmail.com
for more information or to get started on our writing journey.
