We're launching a collection of ten highly varied pieces of
fiction by local writers at a party in the YMCA, Broad Street, Llandovery this Wednesday at 7pm!
The stories in Life: Ten Slices from the Cutting Edge are
the work of ten out of many more students who have been attending my local Writing for Fun and Profit course since
September 2016.
The collection will be freely available to
download online, as a PDF. The stories
illustrate a wide range of imagination and genre.
Several are aimed at children: Jacqui
Hyde's Trials follows the path of a
boy from a Welsh hill farm wanting to be a footballer. If you've ever wondered
what diarist Samuel Pepys might have got up to in the Civil War as a child,
then you might get a clue from Julian Dutton's amusing, eponymous novel
extract. And Primrose by Stella
Starnes gets inside the head of a young teenager growing up in a local village
under the thumb of her mother.
Two are in the genre of speculative
fiction: Mike Tomlin's Guardian is
from an ongoing published ebook series about the discovery of a hidden alien
presence in our midst, while Pete Barker's Share
& Enjoy tracks a small band of rebels in a dystopian future and is the
opening of a completed novel. If you enjoy a sardonic take on life, there is
nothing better in this collection than Mari Mitchell's A Dish Best Eaten Cold, another novel opening.
Four short stories are of the classic type
where an unexpected twist at the end throws the whole story into a lovely new
perspective: Ciaran O'Connell's The Rose
Blossom, about a misunderstanding on holiday, Henry's Story by Mary Thurgate, in which a chance, trivial event
has life-changing consequences, and Assistance
by Kathy Biggs, on the theme of 'what goes around, comes around'. In The Cunning Man's Last Day by historian
Sara Fox, a fortune teller from the upper Tywi valley in the last century seeks
to escape the fate he has seen for himself.
The
writing course
The writing course itself is designed to
create a safe space for writers to learn about aspects of story-telling, the
creation of believable characters, of a good plot and realistic dialogue, and,
above all, how to make readers care and want to read on and on... Students are
encouraged to offer kind, constructive criticism to each other. Each lesson
studies a particular aspect, with practical exercises, often aimed at helping
students create a long work, be it a short story, novel, or script. They also
learn about the publishing industry, agents and marketing their work. I've been
amazed at how much fun and how popular it has been. There is certainly much
talent in this area.
A new course starts for new students next
September from Wednesday 13 September from 2-4pm in the afternoons in the YMCA
on Market Square, Llandovery. The existing evening course will continue at 7pm
on the same date and new members are welcome to join that too, but will have to
catch up a bit faster with the modules! Or, you can take the course online and
also find out more at this web page:
http://davidthorpe.info/online-writing-course/ or call 07901 925671.
