Bantry / Sunday 7 – Saturday 13 July - West Cork Music

5-Day WorkshopsWhere do stories come from?The Short Storywith John MacKenna / €160Where can we find those characters who inhabit shortfiction – the figures who people the tales we need to tell?Occasionally they come looking for us, but more often wehave to go looking for them. And what of the landscapesthey inhabit – the streets, the quiet corners of buildings, thedark recesses of the mind? How do we get these stories outof our heads and onto the page? Part literary treasure-hunt;part character identification parade; part verbal sketching– the week-long pursuit will include a lot of writing,animated discussions and an atmosphere of creativity andpossibility. Forget the idea of being tied to a desk – be readyto meet your characters face-to-face.John MacKenna is the author of fifteen books – shortstories,novels, memoir, poetry and biography. His recentbooks include Where Sadness Begins (2012) and The SpaceBetween Us (2010), which was short-listed for the KerryBook Award. He has won the Hennessy Award and the IrishTimes Fiction Award. His radio documentaries on LeonardCohen won a Jacobs Radio Award and his radio play, TheWoman at the Window, was the silver medal winner at theNew York Radio Festival for RTÉ. He teaches creativewriting at NUIM.The Novel – How to get started …how to keep goingwith Richard Skinner / €160Creating Ideas & Planning: Where do ideas for novelscome from? What kind of writer are you? How can youuse imitation and improvisation to create stories? Plotting/Conflict/Pace: Whereas you follow a story, it is the plotthat leads you through it. If drama is the heart of a story,conflict is its heartbeat. Pace is the current in the river, aforce to make a story sink or swim. ‘Kidnap’ a Character;Research & Exposition/Setting: Research should bechannelled through character, so that things happen becauseof, not in spite of, their presence. A good setting is like anextra character – e.g. Joyce’s Dublin. Synopses & Pitches:By the end of this session, you will have an excellent 1-pagesynopsis and 25-word pitch for your novel.Richard Skinner is the author of four novels. His first, TheRed Dancer, was published by Faber. A translation of hissecond, The Velvet Gentleman, was short-listed in France forthe Prix Livres & Musiques. For his third novel, The Darks,he was awarded an ACE Writers’ Award. He has written awriter’s handbook entitled Fiction Writing (Hale) and hispoetry collection, The light user scheme, will be publishedin 2013 by Smokestack. Richard is Director of the FictionProgramme at the Faber Academy.John MacKenna(photo: Angela Keogh)Richard Skinner33