Bealtaine Festival: Developing a Writing Practice with Catherine Dunne
Info
Date: May 3, 2022
Time: 2.00 pm – 4.00 pm
Duration: 4 weeks
Cost: €20
Presented in partnership with Age & Opportunity, as part of the Bealtaine Festival, celebrating the arts and creativity as we age.
Course Summary
During these four creative writing workshops participants will focus on developing a writing practice for fiction, non-fiction and memoir.
Course Outline
Developing Your Practice
As a starting point, participants will discover the value of the personal contract; the essentials of time management; the role of the internal censor; and the value of freewriting
Where Characters Come From
Using structured exercises, participants will learn to ‘build’ a fictional character; to develop authentic dialogue; and to explore the role of conflict in character development
What’s Your Style?
Every writer’s style is unique to them. Together, we’ll explore the books participants like to read and learn to identify the elements of style that resonate with each individual.
Structuring Your Story
Whether they are drawn to fiction or non-fiction, participants will explore the elements that make a compelling narrative; we’ll examine how best to begin, and end, a piece of work; we’ll explore the writing of scenes and how to tackle the difficult ‘middle stretch’ of any writing project, whether it be essay, fiction, creative non-fiction or memoir.
Catherine Dunne is the author of eleven novels, and one work of non-fiction, An Unconsidered People (2003), exploring the lives of Irish immigrants in 1950s London. An updated edition was published in October 2021.
Her novels include: The Things We Know Now, recipient of the Giovanni Boccaccio International Prize for Fiction in 2013 and shortlisted for the Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. The Years That Followed, longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award in 2018; and Come cade la luce (The Way the Light Falls), shortlisted for the European Strega Prize for Fiction in 2019.
Catherine’s novels have been shortlisted for, among others, the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award and the Italian Booksellers’ Prize. Her work has been translated into several languages.
Catherine received the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature in 2018.
In January 2021 she was decorated as Cavaliere of the Order Stella d’Italia.
Please note this course is open to people aged 50 and above.
