Fellow IQ writer Anne Goodwin has brought out a collection of short stories called Becoming Someone– all themed around the topic of identity. I went to her book launch last week which gave me me the idea for this week’s writing … Read More
As children we are naturally creative, but the disciplines we face as we progress through school, college and career often put constraints on that creativity. I get people coming to my groups who haven’t written since school and are surprised, … Read More
Until recently I thought ‘uplit’ meant ambient lighting, like in the picture, but last week, at a workshop called ‘The Kindness Effect’ I learnt it’s actually a genre, or a literary trend – one that has empathy at its core. … Read More
Writing a novel is a bit like having a child. You watch it develop from an embryonic thing into something beautiful (hopefully). You nurture it, you correct it, you watch with wonder as day by day it surprises you. You … Read More
We’ve been working through the senses in the group I run at Maggie’s. This week we did smells! I asked people to bring things in that smelt interesting (within reason). Among other things they brought citrus fruits, spices, coffee, … Read More
At Maggie’s we often use visual prompts for our writing, but this time we collaborated with the art group that meets on the same day and used some of their creations as prompts. These days we are bombarded … Read More
I feel quite emotional seeing them again,’ says the man from Murphy’s. Stretched out before us is a line of five-foot fibreglass painted bird sculptures, illuminated along the garden paths. These are the Hoodwinked robins, inspired by Nottingham legend … Read More
As I sit down to write this blog JP – my other half – is randomly instructing Siri to play whatever piece of music comes into his head. Siri – resident in a globule-shaped speaker which sits in the centre … Read More
When Nottingham won Unesco City of Literature status in 2015 I was gobsmacked, and delighted, especially having played a teeny part in supporting the bid by joining in a literary flashmob – which involved sitting in the market square with … Read More
Things are the stuff of life and this week’s writing exercise uses objects as prompts. At the last session we did a reminiscence exercise where we went back to school – not always a pleasant place to return to… This … Read More