Workshops : The Power of Storytelling

Writing for you

WRITING WORKSHOPS

From time to time we run workshops, if we sense there is demand. We also run workshops in conjunction with community organisations. In 2013 we ran a series of workshops with a group of carers. We are happy to discuss running workshops/

Are you searching for your writer’s voice? Do you have a story you want to tell? Not sure where to start? Whether you are writing memoir or fiction, long or short, you need to shape your story and bring it to life; we will help you to do this.
Our workshops give time for you, the writer, to reflect on your story, its theme, and direction, your word choices and character development, in a safe and friendly atmosphere where you can receive constructive feedback on your work.
We give individual encouragement and teach skills to assist you with your writing goals.

For more info please see the www.thewritingbusiness.com/workshops and the blog of co-presenter Christina Houen.

The Writing Business Studio, 38a Main Street, Murwillumbah.

Marian – 0411 808445

Presented by Marian Edmunds and Christina Houen

Marian Edmunds is a published author and has worked as a journalist for major newspapers in the UK and Australia for 25 years. She has been the blogger for Byron Bay Writers’ Festival for the past 5 years, and her fiction has been shortlisted in competitions. Her story ‘Blue, Blue Sky’ keeps company with famous international authors in the anthology City-Pick New York, and she is co-author of Navigational Tips For Living In Imperfect World, reviewed in the Sunday Times in London as ‘a refreshingly different kind of self-help book.’ Marian writes, edits and coaches at The Writing Business Studio at 38 Main Street, Murwillumbah.

Christina Houen came to live in the Tweed Valley two years ago, and is inspired by the lush landscape and creative richness of the community. She has been writing, teaching and mentoring writers for over 13 years, one-to-one and in workshops. She is a Master of Creative Arts and has a PhD in Life Writing (Curtin University). She has published memoir and articles in international collections and journals. Her memoir of childhood was shortlisted for the Finch Memoir Prize 2011. Christina is writing a fictional memoir of her mother’s life and an autobiographical novel of her adult life. She is also rewriting her PhD thesis (on women’s desire) as a book, and completing research and writing of a biography of British single parents and their children who migrated to WA post-WW2 under the Fairbridge program. Christina was writer in residence at the Peter Cowan Writers Centre in Perth in September/October 2012. She is a professional editor at Perfect Words Editing, and writes a life writing blog (www.memoryandyou.wordpress.com) and reviews books for the Courier Mail.

The Power Of Storytelling: Workshop Topics:
1. Getting started: Finding the essential desire, struggle, and climax in your story.
2. Mapping your story: genre, defining the themes, plot line.
3. Finding your voice, controlling point of view.
4. Turning life events into fiction and giving life to fiction. The truth of the story, the fine line between truth and fiction. Turning the raw material of life into a good story, be it memoir or fiction.
5. Shaping your story: the story arc, constructing scenes and threading them together.
6. Description and character
7. Dialogue, style, authenticity
8. Truth-telling and ethics; dealing with writer’s block, criticism and rejection.
9. Redrafting and when to stop
10. Publishing possibilities.

For more info please see the www.thewritingbusiness.com/workshops and the blog of my co-presenter Christina Houen. blog of my co-presenter Christina Houen.

9.30 am – 12.30 pm
Half-day workshop, $80. Booking essential at
The Writing Business Studio, 38a Main Street, Murwillumbah.

0411 808445

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