A Year of Writing Naturally: Parts 1 and 2

€160,00

This year's Sundays of Gentle Creativity will be devoted to writing about nature. We'll explore ways to bring our care and concern for the natural world into the work we create, and look at incorporating more of the natural world into our fiction and memoir.

We can sometimes forget how intimate our connection to nature is, and how familiar we are with many of its expressions. Bees, flies, ants, dogs and cats, birds, a goldfish. Hills, beaches, forests, gardens. Flowers, food, the weather, and our own being as part of the natural world.

"The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus." Annie Dillard

As always, the focus of the workshops will be the writing itself. As inspiration, we'll visit the works of writers like Jenny Diski, Wendell Berry, George Monbiot, Mary Oliver, and dip into extracts from some of the works in Penguin's Green Ideas Series. Over the year, we'll also read from Jamaica Kincaid's My Garden (Book), Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, amongst others.

Whether you'd like to take on a new project to see you through the year, or want to add scenes to a work in progress, or experiment with something new in your creative practice, the workshops are devised to encourage exploration, and the company of other writers will keep you focused.

We'll also look closer at our own writing practice, and consider the changes we might make so that our ways of working feels more natural – lighter, magnanimous, cohesive – more aligned with who we are as individuals.

Part 1 (February – April):

Week 1 Mapping Your Natural Resources
Week 2 From the Ground Up, Worms and Beetles
Week 3 Growing Wild
Week 4 Gentle Flowers
Week 5 Straight from the Tree
Week 6 What's Wasted
Week 7 Sprouts

Part 2 (May – June):

Week 1 Germ/i/nation
Week 2 Bird's Eye View
Week 3 The Mosquito in the Room
Week 4 Milk and Honey, Made by Creatures
Week 5 Say a Little Prayer for Dew
Week 6 Utopia and Dystopia
Week 7 The Whole Bouquet

Some themes coming up in Parts 3 and 4: Storms, marine life, Old McDonald, hibernation, the moon and stars.

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." John Muir

Writers are welcome to join for either or both parts. The workshops are open to all writers everywhere, all levels, all genres, all you'll need is a willingness to write, explore, and be open to the surprises in your work. Although the workshops are held in English, you're welcome to write and share work in any language.

Limited to 15 participants

Dates and Times:

Sundays, 6–8pm Central European Time
Part I Feb: 23, March: 2, 9, 23 and 30 (no session 16 March), April: 6 and 13
Part II May: 11, 18, 25, June: 8, 15, 22, 29 (no session June 1)

Please click here for the corresponding start time where you are.

Cost: €160 each part / €290 both parts

“The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings.” Rachel Carson

About the tutor: Shaun Levin is the author of Seven Sweet Things, Alone with a Man in a Room, and Snapshots of The Boy, amongst other books. His short stories have been anthologised alongside writers such as Nadine Gordimer, Ali Smith, and Edmund White. He is the creator of Writing Maps. Shaun has been teaching creative writing for over twenty years.