Forum topic: Living literature across the border

[Original article]

Upcoming Haringey Literature Live courses - some nearly full already. For details of how to book visit www.haringeyliteraturelive.com.

FINDING THE POEM with Paul Lyalls

Wednesdays 10.30am to 1pm; dates 31 Oct, 7, 14, 21, 28 Nov, 5 Dec; cost £95; venue Writing Room.
All are welcome on this fun and liberating workshop-based course, whether you are new to writing, or wish to expand your collection of poems, or are a prose writer wanting to explore your writing capabilities. Expect to be highly productive as you learn how to find and unlock poems, let them build, grow and multiply. Exercises in class, focused on tiny details, every day experiences, or life-changing events, will enable you to encapsulate aspects of your internal and external worlds. This is a friendly and constructive course which previous students have described as ‘inspirational', comparing Paul to a 'magician'!

NOVEL WRITING: BUILDING YOUR SKILLS with Sonia Lambert

Thursdays 10.30am to 1pm; dates 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 November, 6 December; cost £95; venue Writing Room.
This course will provide a supportive environment in which to build the skills to improve your novel. Each week we will be looking at issues such as inspiration, character, view point, setting, plot, and editing. We will try out short writing exercises in class each week and discuss advice on technique. There will also be an opportunity to share extracts from your work in progress during the six weeks. "It's been a real learning process ... to come away feeling you are a better writer than when you started... this has definitely happened for me." Dawn

Extremely Short Flash Fiction with David Gaffney

Sunday 28th October 11.45am-5pm, £50, Writing Room.
Can you tell a story in less than 500 words? David Gaffney thinks you can, and in this workshop you will learn how to reduce ideas to an ultra-short format – how to condense while keeping your story effective, powerful and easy to understand, how to manage character, description, point of view and dialogue, and how to reduce a thousand words to 150 without losing a thing. Full of practical, fun exercises, this session will leave you wondering why anything has to be longer than a side of A4.
David Gaffney is the author of Sawn Off Tales (2006), Aromabingo (2007), Never Never (2008), The Half Life of Songs (2010) and Sawn Off Opera, a set of operas with composer Ailis Ni Riain. His new collection of short stories, More Sawn Off Tales is out now. https://www.davidgaffney.org

Poems Which Speak with Poet Declan Ryan

Sunday 25th November 10.45am-4pm, £50, Writing Room.
“I’d say it now if I thought you were listening” – Hugo Williams
In writing a poem, it’s possible to speak to someone in a way you can’t in everyday language, even someone who is no longer around to talk to at all. We’ll look at some poets who’ve written in an attempt to speak to the dead, or get through to someone who was otherwise unreachable, and start to write poems that say it now, as if they were listening.
Declan Ryan was born in County Mayo, Ireland. His work has appeared in Poetry Review, Poetry London, Poetry (US), Poetry Ireland and the New Statesman, among others. Declan was chosen as one of the Faber New Poets in 2014 and his pamphlet was published in the Faber New Poets series. He has taught writing at King’s and at Royal Holloway. His criticism can be regularly seen in The Times Literary Supplement and the Los Angeles Review of Books.