Writing Workshops at the Festival of Words

Who is your city?

Izaak Bosman 

 

The opportunity to head down to The Writer’s Studio for Lara Elena Donnelly’s workshop ‘Who is your City?’ came as a huge relief – after a morning of heavy analysis, I could walk out of college with my head held high knowing that I had a bloody good reason to be bunking independent study. The event comes as part of Nottingham’s second annual Festival of Words that has chosen, this year, to celebrate the power of words in its many diverse forms.

 

On arrival at the studio I was immediately greeted by Lara, a very enthusiastic American. As I joined the other participants in preparation for our writing workshop I wondered how a former factory city like Nottingham must seem to a rural Kentuckian.   

 

Lara began by introducing herself; having graduated the prestigious Alpha SF/F/H and Clarion workshops, she has gone on to write a number of sci-fi and fantasy novels as well as having been awarded the Dell Magazine Award for fiction. She is currently constructing an entirely fictitious environment for her developing “vintage-glam spy thriller”, and so we were definitely in good hands. 

 

Lara’s first impressions of Nottingham were that of an extremely diverse culture. Nottingham’s rugged appearance - recently given a makeover by investment in the cultural quarter and the City of Literature bid – make it a desirable and contradictory place to write about. We were then given half an hour to address three different aspects of our chosen environment: the mood and personality of our city, its geographical location, and finally its inhabitants. 

 

Lara’s main emphasis throughout was on the significance of tiny, intricate details – she wanted us to view our cities as being equal and as one. Nothing, no matter how seemingly unimportant, was irrelevant. It was incredible, really, how much everyone had managed to get down in just a two hour period which gave me a greater appreciation of what an author chooses to leave in or out of a novel. Overall it put Ryan Air to shame; six cities, two hours, and for only a fiver. 

 

 

Judith Allnatt – Writing Objects

Sue Barsby

 

We are trying to work out what is being discussed by a passage that includes the phrase “all flopping arms, collapsed and undignified like a marionette.” It is a passage from a previous workshop, written by people with a better grasp of metaphors than I, and is about bananas. I am immediately nervous in case they are expecting something as descriptive from me. 

 

The workshop, led by Nottingham Festival of Words resident author, Judith Allnatt, explores writing about objects – about using them as prompts, as tools for storytelling, as part of your world building. We have been loaned some objects from the university’s archaeology department - they are displayed in incongruous Tupperware boxes - but I instead find inspiration in two very different things that Judith has brought along. The first, a peculiar nativity or religious scene secreted inside a bamboo tube that opens up, the second a toy car made to commemorate the Queen Mother’s 90th birthday. 

 

Neither provides me with a sudden descriptive skill but both give me a chance to pluck stories out of nowhere and build tiny worlds in my mind. There are some lovely lyrical descriptions floating round the room. I am particularly struck by the lady sitting next to me who writes of old fashioned lace gloves and evokes an entire era of grace and suppressed longing in just a few sentences. 

 

It is a fruitful workshop for all of us, many enquiring at the end for details of Judith’s other sessions.

 

Festival of Words website