Festival writers
OCA tutor Liz Cashdan is leading a creative writing workshop on the theme of memory and memoir at Sheffield’s Off the Shelf Festival of Words next month. OCA is one of the sponsors of the festival, which is celebrating its 25th year.
The workshop takes place on the first day of the festival, Saturday 8 October, between 10am and 4pm and is suitable for writers of poetry and prose. In the morning, Liz will be delving into the collection at the city’s Weston Park Museum. Workshop participants will be invited to use the objects they find there as the inspiration for stories or poems. You will be able to draft, edit and rewrite a piece of work and read it to your fellow participants in its final form. Tickets, available through the festival website, are £8, £6 for concessions.
Liz’s workshop is one of a series for creative writers being offered by Off the Shelf. On Saturday 22 October, digital media artists and writers Andy Campbell, Judi Alston and Dr Isabelle van der Born are putting on a masterclass introducing digital storytelling, looking at how it differs from traditional fiction writing. A Poetry Business Writing Day the following Saturday, 29 October includes writing exercises in the morning and a critical workshop in the afternoon. Tickets are available on the day. Grief writing is the subject of a workshop led by Beverley Ward and Ingrid Hanson, two writers who have recently been bereaved themselves. The workshop, on Saturday 5 November, will explore the many ways in which we can use writing to confront, remember and re-imagine the death (and life) of someone we love.
Throughout the festival, which runs from 8 to 29 October, work by three OCA photographers will be showcased in the city centre, at the town hall, cathedral and central library. Stephanie D’Hubert’s What remains is a book of photographs and words in which she reflects on the life of her mother. In Look for him John Umney depicts his tormented relationship with his father. 14 images about childhood, exploring the relationship a child has with the landscape, are the subject of Penny Watson’s Eudosia. Collectively, the images look at the role objects play in unlocking recollections of our personal history and ask how memory shapes how we see the world. Admission to the exhibitions is free.
Other literary festivals taking place around the UK this autumn
Bath Festival of Children’s Literature, 30 September to 9 October
Berwick Literary Festival, 20 to 23 October
Cheltenham Festival, 7 to 16 October
Charleston Small Wonder Short Story Festival
Dundee Literary Festival, 19 to 23 October
Hampstead and Highgate Literary Festival, 22 to 26 September
Ilkley Literature Festival, 30 September to 16 October
Manchester Literature Festival, 7 to 23 October
Image credit: Stephanie D’Hubert, What remains
Originally published at WeAreOCA.
