Welcome to 2022!
Dear Writer,
Thank you for expressing interest in the Writing Room and what I am offering in 2022.
My courses serve as a practical writing guide, giving you the opportunity to excercise your skills while offering practical solutions to keep you writing.
Inspiration will come in the form of:
Masterclasses with best-selling authors
A Forum for discussing issues around creativity
Q&A’s with publishing industry specialists
Strategies to get going and stay motivated, tenacity, grit and making fear work for you.
This letter is to whet your appetites and introduce you to the Writing Room.
By way of introduction, I am a novelist and teacher. My debut novel, Midwinter, was honoured for the Women’s Prize, my second, Johannesburg, by the RSL Encore award as well as others. I am a BBC Radio 4 contributor and have been widely and generously reviewed in the literary and mainstream press both in the UK (TLS, Guardian, Spectator etc.) as well as in France (La Figaro, L’Express, Elle etc.) My 3rd and 4th novels are in the works, both nearing completion and I am represented by Jo Unwin at JULA.
As a writer and teacher, I am constantly reviewing my teaching and incorporating what I have learned from my own practice into lessons.
This year, I present a range of courses, events and Masterclasses focused around writing, ending the year with short weekend courses and longer retreats in and around Florence, Italy - details for which will be sent closer to the time.
FREE events and workshops are on offer throughout the year and new courses are being added all the time.
If you would like to express your interest in anything you read here, please feel free to contact me so a fuller prospectus can be sent.
I do hope to welcome you to a class or event in the near future.
- Fiona Melrose
Courses, Classes and Events 2022
A guide for what to look forward to this year.
January
CRAFT MASTERCLASS with PAULA HAWKINS.
Wed 26 Jan - 7PM (UK)
Online, Ticketed Event. £12.50
A brilliant start to the year, with global best selling author of The Girl On the Train, Into The Water and recently A Slow Fire Burning. Paula Hawkins is known for her complex and riveting characters as well as her ability to keep readers guessing. Paula will be talking to us about craft, process and practice. There is so much to learn from her, a master of character, suspense, pacing and so much more. This class includes an open Q&A.
Book Your Spot »
MONTHLY ROUND-TABLE WRITING GROUPS BEGIN
Online
£25/ session
Sessions are around 1-1.5 hours. They are loosely structured. The idea is a convivial, supportive environment that keeps you moving forward with your writing practice. It is intended to be both practical and encouraging. Most importantly, each writer leaves the session with a clear idea of what they will be working on in the month ahead.
*Note groups are limited, so please register sooner rather than later.
*James Baldwin
SOUNDING BOARD SUNDAY
FREE EVENT
4 x Free Online Sesssions
Jan 30, 6, 13 and 20 Feb. 6PM (UK)
Are you needing a little support in getting your writing year off to a solid start? These will be Sunday evening sessions, starting with Sounding Board Sunday during which you can ask questions and get yourself going for the year. I will offer advice on the basics of sound writing practice such as scheduling, preparation and repetitive acts that create habit-forming neurological pathways. The Sounding Board Sunday is followed by 3 x Sound Start Sundays which set the intention and tone of the week.
Book Your Spot »
February
PUBLISHING INDUSTRY EXPERT Q & A -JO UNWIN, LITERARY AGENT and founder of JULA.
Mon 7 Feb - 7PM (UK)
Online, Ticketed Event. £12.50
*All proceeds will go toward sending a writer of limited means on a fully-funded place to my writing retreat in Tuscany, Italy - Oct 2022.
Jo Unwin is one of the most dynamic, engaged and savvy agents working in the industry today. This is an opportunity to ask her everything you have always wanted to know about: getting an agent, getting published, what an agent does, what you need to do to get their attention, submissions, sales, contracts, rights etc. This is an informal and information-packed session for everyone hoping to understand the industry.
Book Your Spot »
FORUM #1 - RADICAL ATTENTION with JULIA BELL.
Mon 21 Feb - 7PM (UK)
Online, Ticketed Event. £12.50
Julia Bell’s brilliant book gives its name to this series of talks about our chronic lack of attention. Julia explains the impact platforms have on our creative selves but offers hope and ways to resist a slow numb decline and reinvigorate our creative selves. As a teacher of creative writing Julia is acutely aware of the impact these issues have on our creative process and what might be done to mitigate the erosion of our creative lives.
Julia is a novelist and is Course Director of the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck. Her work has been published in the Paris Review, TLS, The White Review etc and been recorded for BBC.
March, April & May
INTRODUCTION TO FICTION WRITING
Tues 8,15,22,29 & 12 April
Online. 5 Sessions + 1 Q&A
£310
This course aims to give you the basics to get you started on your novel. It does away with many of the myths around writing a novel and what a novel is and gives you the space to simply write. We cover the broader topics such as character, point of view, form, use of time. We work to uncover your drivers as a writer as well as those energising your novel. From the very beginning, you will be encouraged to write using targeted exercises which you will complete in class or do in the intervening week.
Contact Me Directly »
*Toni Morrison
IDEA to DRAFT from Great Idea to Dirty Draft
9,10,17,24,30,31 May. 7PM (UK)
Online, Ticketed. £310
During this practical workshop, you will actually be writing your idea notes and drafting your novel. Your idea can be as vague as a line of dialogue, a character, a scene that sticks with you and that you can develop into a full idea. In this course, you will be taking this idea and from that producing what I call a Dirty Draft.
*Note this course is best suited to those who have done the Intro to Fiction course or similar.
June
FEAR & LOATHING
27 & 28 June. 7PM (UK)
Online, ticketed event. £85.00
Understanding and working through the things that stop you from writing and finding practical step by step strategies for keeping going. Avoidance, procrastination and fear are part of the same root. This two-session course unpacks where the one ends and the other begins and gives you useful strategies for understanding and acknowledging the place of fear and avoidance in your practice but not letting it dominate your work.
Book Your Spot »
October
*Exact dates and costs to be confirmed - awaiting Italian and EU travel restrictions.
Reading & Writing in Florence - 2 DAY WRITING COURSE in FLORENCE, ITALY
This is an on site, practical writing course in beautiful Florence. We will be using the city for our writing exercises including museums etc. A city as remarkable as Florence lends itself to written description and much of its history creates ready-made stories. But, writing about such an iconic location means that it is all too easy to resort to hackneyed purple prose, simply trotting out the city’s landmarks like a tour guide. The challenge is to write meaningfully and usefully about the city as you find it with honest, fresh eyes yet still convey its essential elements which have remained unchanged for centuries. These are skills transferable to any city or location with iconic status and draws on all aspects of writing about place and geography in relation to the writer or narrator’s point of view.
5 NIGHT TUTORED RETREAT - in Viccho, FLORENCE
This is a fully immersive tutored retreat in a magnificent 15th Century, Medicean villa in rural Tuscany. The retreat involves a short morning check-in with the group who then have the rest of the day to write. Each student is offered a one-to-one tutorial during the course of their stay as well as regular check-ins. Students will have either begun a project or be at the beginning of a project and require the time and space to get going. Support, advice and encouragement are all on offer as well as ample time to simply get through the pages. Evenings are given over to informal, specific topics of discussion, inspiration and ideas. If you would rather ignore all of this and simply continue with your work this is up to you. More details on the structure of the retreat on request.
*Numbers are strictly limited. All bookings need to be done through me.
