A vintage year - innovation, business nous, along with the best of what makes Swanwick, Swanwick! Wonderful evening speakers all week.
A vintage year - innovation, business nous, along with the best of what makes Swanwick, Swanwick! Wonderful evening speakers all week.
Karin Bachmann
More infoClose BoxYou've done it. The first draft of your story or novel is finished. What to do with it now and what (certainly) not to do will be one aspect of this course.
We'll have a closer look at editing, taking the points of last year's 'Beginners' Guide to Style' one step further:
How do I make my text stronger?
How do I get the intended meaning across without resorting to repetition or italics?
Have I taken out any info-dump?
We will also have a look at what happens afterwards:
Why do I have to know about my target group?
What is a synopsis and why do I need one?
When can I get rid of my research findings?
Come in and find out.
Phil Barber
More infoClose BoxSession One - Delivery skills
A) Using the body well
B) Using the voice well
C) Speech construction principles
Interactive session delivering short speeches, with lots of feeding back good practice, demo and improvement points.
In between sessions - prepare a 2 minute speech of your choice.
Session Two - Construction Skills
Prepared speeches. Demo and feedback.
You will come away from these sessions more confident and energised having taken part. It is huge fun and I engage full support from the audience. No one will have to speak if they don't wish to. I will be making it as easy for beginners as possible, whilst people with experience can be stretched a little more.
Professional Life Coach for 12 years.
Leadership graduate CTI California.
Started and run Public Speaking Club in Devon six years ago.
Owned various enterprises including successful Art Retail business and a hotel.
Merchant Navy Navigating Officer for 10 years (Master Mariner Certificate).
Malcolm Chisholm
More infoClose BoxLive demonstrations of:
Session One
Twitter and Facebook
Your free website
Session Two
How to publish your book with Lulu.com
Malcolm has been involved with computers since the days of steam and retired after teaching IT for 25 years at Southport FE College. He has also taught Public Speaking for 35 years.
He wrote The Internet Guide for Writers in the HowTo series and is co-author of Public Speaking for Writers.
He is currently engaged in working with authors to self-publish their books.
Meg Davis
More infoClose BoxSession One
How can a writer make a successful submission to an agent: preparation of the work, researching the right agencies, writing the submission letter and synopsis.
Session Two
Once a writer has an agent, how to make best use of them: submission strategy, career management, how often to make contact, things agents hate, ways to keep things moving.
I worked in the theatre and in a bookshop before becoming an agent. I've served on the council of the Association of Authors' Agents, and am currently on the council of the PMA (the other trade association for agents), as well as having been on the negotiating teams for a number of industry standard agreements. I represent writers in all media (except for non-fiction, children's and poetry). Last year I set up a new agency, Ki Agency Ltd, to work in a more modern and pro-active way.
View Meg's website
Roy Devereux
More infoClose BoxSession 1
How to make a start on the research, including going online live to demonstrate some of the sources. Extending the study to include local history: Where did the family live? What did they do? What was happening in the world around them?
Session 2
Putting it all together: writing the history and publishing the book.
Roy Devereux has been writing feature articles for national magazines for over 20 years. He cut his teeth on titles devoted to boats and boating and later moved on to travel, nostalgia and, most recently, Family History. Roy is an award-winning photographer and he illustrates his own articles. He has been coming to Swanwick for many years and has been a Course Leader on four occasions.
Della Galton
More infoClose Box
Della Galton is a freelance writer and tutor. She is best known for her short stories, and sells in the region of 80 short stories a year to magazines both in the UK and abroad. She also publishes novels, novellas and full length non fiction and is the author of the very popular How to Write and Sell Short Stories and Moving On - Short Story to Novel – A step by Step Guide.
A not so widely known fact about Della is that she's a commissioning editor for Xcite Books who are the UK's leading publisher of Erotica!
View Della's website
Simon Hall
More infoClose BoxWe'll look at what makes a story and how to attract media interest in your work, the writing of alluring press releases, how to be interviewed, and even include how to dress.
The course will feature the importance of an angle, the art of placing articles in the media and feeding in follow up stories, along with cultivating contacts with journalists.
There'll also be a section on new media; the opportunities for promoting yourself online, and using the web to build a profile and attract people to your work.
There'll be a mix of teaching along with interactive exercises, which will (hopefully) be entertaining as well as instructive.
Simon Hall is an author of detective fiction and a BBC Television Crime Correspondent, based in the south west of England.
His books - the tvdetective series - are about a television reporter who covers crimes and gets so involved in the cases he helps the police to solve them. Five have been published. Simon has also written a play based on the books, An Unnecessary Murder, which premiered earlier this year as a charitable performance.
Now 43 years old, he began a broadcasting career as a DJ on the radio and in nightclubs, then moved into radio and TV news. Simon worked in Europe, London and Ireland before settling in Devon.
He lectures at Exeter University on careers in the media, as well as giving talks about the industry at local schools, and is proud to have helped many young people into jobs in broadcasting.
Simon lists his likes as beer - he regularly judges at real ale festivals - going to the gym, walking the Devon countryside, solving crosswords, composing curious Tweets and studying pop lyrics.
View Simon's website
Steve Hartley
More infoClose BoxWhy is Mr. Darcy so uptight, and Mr. Bingley so nice? Why does Miss Eleanor Dashwood have all the Sense, but Miss Marianne Dashwood have all the Sensibility?
In the first session, you will learn a simple behaviour model that divides people into four basic groups, based not only on how they use their voices, gestures, and expressions, but also how they react under pressure.
The second session will show you how to use the model to highlight differences between characters, make them distinctive, and then ensure that they stay consistent when you plunge them into that earth-shattering crisis. It will also help you understand why some people get right up your nose on occasions!
In these entertaining and interactive workshops, there's a Cosmo-style quiz to identify your own behavioural style, a few videos, and some very bad impersonations.
Steve Hartley is the author of the Danny Baker Record Breaker series published by Macmillan Children's Books. The World's Biggest Bogey was long-listed for the 2010 Waterstones' Book Prize. A brand new series will be published by Macmillan in 2013.
He has presented at numerous events throughout the UK and Ireland, including the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Northern Children's Book Festival, as well as dozens of other festival, school and library visits.
Born and bred in Manchester, he now lives in Lancashire with his wife and daughter. He shoots arrows for fun, and takes silliness very seriously.
View Steve's website
Peter Jones
More infoClose BoxWhether you want to publish a print book, an e-book, or even an audio book, this short, two-part course will ensure that your first steps in the world of e-publishing are in the right direction.
In the morning we'll be covering the different options available to the modern e-publisher, how to get started, and pitfalls to avoid. In the afternoon we cover the real work of e-publishing - publicity - with a whistle stop tour of websites, blogging, facebook, twitter, reviews, competitions, give-aways, and pricing.
Please feel free to come to either, or both, sessions.
Peter Jones started professional life as a particularly rubbish Graphic Designer, followed by a stint as a mediocre Petrol Pump Attendant. After that he got embroiled in the murky world of credit cards until a freak accident with a zip zap machine (remember those?) restructured his DNA at the molecular level and gave him entrepreneurial powers.
Now, Peter spends his days - most of them anyway - writing. He is the author of two and a half fabulously popular self-help books on the subjects of happiness, dieting and online dating. If you’re overweight, lonely, and unhappy - he's your guy. Meanwhile his debut novel, snappily entitled "The Good Guy’s Guide to Getting The Girl", will be available any year now.
Peter doesn’t own a large departmental store and probably isn't the same guy you've seen on the TV show Dragons' Den.
View Peter's website
Sharon Kendrick
More infoClose BoxDetails coming soon!
Sharon Kendrick has telling stories ever since she can remember. Written on lined paper at the age of twelve, her first book was a gripping tale of identical twins (with dark, Cleopatra bobs) fighting evil at their boarding school and was titled: NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. She still loves that title.
She left school way too early and had jobs as diverse as walking up and down Hounslow High Street wearing a sandwich board, to being PA to an eccentric cardiologist. She's been a nurse and a waitress, a cook and a shop assistant and all these jobs have proved invaluable when it comes to writing novels - because the best research comes from life.
Her first book for Harlequin Mills & Boon was published without a single change - something she now puts down to beginner's luck - and she has gone on to write over eighty more. People always ask if she doesn-t ever run out of ideas - but how could she? Writing romance is about a love affair between two people and people are unique - so there's infinite material out there. She considers herself very lucky to earn her living doing something she loves so much and she's currently seeking inspiration in the beautiful Derbyshire countryside where the Swanwick Writers' school is held!
View Sharon's website
Lesley Lawson Botez
More infoClose BoxHow to write compelling copy
Session 1
Overview of the art of copywriting
Analysis of ads and publications
The client's brief
The message/the market
The concept
Exercise
Session 2
Illustrations
Completion of exercise
Feedback
Q and A
Lesley Lawson Botez is a writer and psychologist. Her copywriting career began at Saatchi. She left to set up her own agency specialized in industrial and corporate communications for multi-nationals with European headquarters based in Geneva. In her search for a bank to add to her client base, this was Switzerland after all, she was hired to set up the communications department for the Republic National Bank group of private banks. She launched the bank's international media campaign and designed their range of annual reports and publications. Not made for banking, she took a five month assignment writing and producing the media paper for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). She loved the challenge of the ICRC and stayed for five years, becoming head of field publications. Following a late marriage Lesley returned to university to take a Masters in psychology. She is working on a relationship guide called "Holding out for a hero: seven steps to meeting and keeping love over 40".
David Nobbs
More infoClose BoxInformal thoughts about the right and wrong way to go about writing humorous novels, sit-coms, television plays and sketches. There will practical examples from my work, plus the opportunity to ask questions.
David started writing on That was the week that was in 1963. He wrote for The Frost Report, The Two Ronnies, Ken Dodd, Tommy Cooper, Frankie Howard and Les Dawson. His many television series include:The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, A Bit of a Do, Fairly Secret Army and Love on a Branch Line.
David has had 18 novels published, including four Reginald Perrin and four Henry Pratt books.
View David's website
Michael O'Byrne
More infoClose BoxThe investigation process is massively constrained by the need to adhere to legal guidelines. Sometimes it is necessary in the course of an investigation for an investigator to find a way around them. As Lord Denning in the Appeal Court said when confronted by such a situation the police 'somehow seem to manage', although he was later to say in the same court when it all went pear-shaped that 'if anything has gone wrong, it's the police ... not our system of justice'. The workshops will go through a number of common scenarios looking at these issues and developing storylines and dialogue appropriate to them.
A police officer from the age of 19 serving in the Royal Hong Kong Police, The Met, Surrey, Thames Valley and Bedfordshire, retiring as chief constable. Since retiring he has concentrated on writing. Changing Policing - Revolution not Evolution was published in 2002 and The Crime Writer's Guide to Police Practice and Procedure (publisher Robert Hale) in 2009. He has written a novel and three crime thrillers which have yet to find a publisher who can fall in love with any of them. He has presented two previous workshops at Swanwick.
Alexa Radcliffe-Hart
More infoClose BoxFlash Fiction is a story created within a few words up until 1000; the maximum is dependent on who you speak to, what competition or deadline it's for, and what you can squeeze it down to.
This course will focus on helping you create stories with 200-250 words in mind. This has the aim of honing your skills as a writer, and opening you up to a new and quickly evolving fiction form.
There will also be the opportunity to submit to a competition during the week with the prize of a 1:1 with Alexa.
Alexa Radcliffe-Hart, known by most as Lexi, is part of the editing team at Dog Horn Publishing and is excitedly setting plans in motion for Fruit Bruise Press, the literary side of Dog Horn. Her love of the literary and experimental knows no bounds. She also provides freelance editorial services.
Lexi is inspired by so many authors and loves to find new voices from emergent writers as much as established ones. She's been writing prose and poetry for as long as she could write and believes stories lead life intrinsically and all you have to do is scratch the surface and hunt until the characters pop out and the words begin to flow.
View Alexa's website
Katie White
More infoClose BoxStella Whitelaw
More infoClose BoxEveryone loves to read a good ghost story. But these days readers want something different: no clanking chains or headless riders. I've written about screaming flowers, books that open themselves, a maid who hears jumbo jets roaring overhead a hundred years before Heathrow is built, and a motorway victim who returns to his favourite service station every Friday.
The Hayes has its own two ghosts, seen by many of the staff, but I promise that this two-parter will not scare you. It will motivate you into writing a story that is uniquely different and has a good chance of selling.
So let's explore really bright ideas, do lots of lateral thinking and recharge our willingness to work.
Stella Whitelaw is a professional writer with over 300 short stories published in national magazines, including 40 ghostie stories. She has 47 books published, including four How-Tos. Stella has also been awarded an MBE for services to journalism.
Each day there is a selection of two-part courses for you to choose from, each lead by an expert tutor. The courses cover a range of genres and subjects, from non-fiction to novels, performance to poetry. Follow your favourite area throughout the week, or branch out and try something new - the choice is yours.
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