Mentoring writers and the Society of Authors

Some of you will know that I teach creative writing and mentor writers.

Last week I was privileged to give a keynote one hour workshop at the first Society of Authors event to be held in Wales for many years.

It was held in Cornerstones, Cardiff on a too-hot day. I gave a presentation on using psychology to create convincing characters that captivate readers and leap off the page – this approach also helps to overcome writers' block.

Thanks to Society of Authors coordinator Jo McCrum for giving me the chance to do this! And all the writers who gave me such great feedback afterwards.

Jo suggested I turn my notes into an e-book. When I've finished my current non-fiction book on creating sustainable 'one planet' cities, I will definitely do this will all my material for my writing course.

The next Welsh SoA event will be held in Swansea in September and be a simple get-together run with the help of children's writer Helen Docherty who's based in the town.

Right now I have an interesting job working with six PhD students of sustainable placemaking. They want to turn their ideas about living well into short stories for children.

Being academics writing fiction does not come easily for many of them but they're doing really well! They're now well into their first drafts and we hope to have an e-book out in the autumn! More later.

 If anyone here wants to know more, do get in touch and look at the page on my website about the writing course.

Launch party for my writing class' collection!

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.