Dear reader,

Welcome to the first issue of The Creative Times. Is it too pompuous a name to give to a humble newsletter? I obviously don't think so and I hope you'll like it too! I cannot thank you enough for signing up, for reading the site, for taking my workshops or for entering my short story competition this year. There would be nothing like this without you.

Highlights from this issue:

  • An update on Workshops and Courses
  • Latest on The Short Story Competition
  • Good Reads
  • The Dramatic Action Card Deck

 

Workshops and Courses
 

The Creative Identity workshop has now become an online class starting September. Yes, I've finally caved in to pressure, requests and good advice from friends and fans (gosh... fans. Still, you ain't nobody until you get hate mail). There will be lots going on during these eight weeks and in fact I am already in the middle of recording sessions (or... learning how to record sessions, more like) for our enjoyment.

The course officially starts on 19 September, but I shall send out the reading list a couple of weeks before that and the website itself will be available shortly after, so that you can start creating your pages and networking. And of course, the winners of the Short Story Competition get a place in this class. More details are up at my digs and although you're free to register at any point, it would help me enormously if you did so by 1 September, as I need to create username and passwords for everybody as well as the mailshot for the reading list.

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Meanwhile, the next live workshop in Manchester, on The Book Proposal, will take place at the beginning of November. I've made no secret that writing book proposals is one of my favourite occupations and that I am a champion book proposer to boot. As I have specified in the past though, remember that you do not need a proposal if you are writing fiction (you need a synopsis) but you do if you are writing non-fiction. No non-fiction project is ever commissioned without the proposal but the good news is that no non-fiction project is ever written in its entirety before a deal is made. Once you've got three chapters in the sack (your sample), you need to whip out a killer prop and then send the whole lot forth to prosper. One day I may turn this two-day workshop into an online course but for now it's live in Manchester.

The Short Story Competition


I recently wrote an update about the Short Story Competition. It was one heck of an entertaining rant, both to write and to read, but I've kept my word and have considered all stories on their fictional merits alone, without paying any attention to matters of presentation. I do have the twelve winners but before I can unleash the news to the world, I need to finalise the little contract that I shall send out.

Meanwhile, I can tell you that I am working on the design of the anthology with my photographer friend Galia Alena from Sydney (well... she is working on it, I am merely sending barking emails) and that all the critiques will start to trickle to you from mid-August. As you know, this is a one-woman operation so thank you very much for your patience.

 

In My Neck of The Woods


If you are around here in the next few months, you may wish to enjoy some of Elizabeth Gaskell's Bi-Centenary Celebrations. They have been taking place in Manchester and Knutsford since April and will continue to the end of the year. Here is the leaflet. 


 

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The glorious Library Theatre in Manchester had its last curtain call last month after The Importance of Being Earnest. The Central Library, which was its home, is now closed for an extensive refurbishment programme. But the Library Theatre Company hasn't disappeared, it is simply moving. Starting September with Tom Stoppard's Arcadia the company will work at the award-winning Lowry Theatre instead and in other venues across the city. If you are ever in Manchester though, let me recommend the John Rylands Library on Deansgate, a magnificent building, both inside and outside, but one that you may well find just a tad too awe-inducing to concentrate in (I know I do).

 

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A World Observed: 1940 – 2010: Photographs by Dorothy Bohm will close later this month. From vintage portraits to Polaroids and contemporary images, this exhibition spans over six decades. If you can't see it in person, enjoy its dedicated blog and maybe grab a print or two in Manchester Art Gallery's online shop. 

 

 

Dramatic Action Card Deck
 

Did you download it when I posted it back in May? This is the ultimate writing prompt game inspired by Aristotle's Poetics. It will be available later this year as a proper gift set, but for the time being you can just grab the .pdf, cut the pages up, shuffle and practise a bit of lateral thinking for your stories. And then, who knows, you may even end up with something really awesome. 

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Before I go I should tell you that yesterday I had a most amazing meeting in London regarding a fabulous creative venture. It's early days still but, all being well, I may have some great news to share with you really soon.

That's it for the first issue of The Creative Times dear reader! I hope you enjoyed it and hope that you'll join me and the winners of the Short Story Competition for the online class next month.

Remember: if you do not wish to receive further updates from me, please unsubscribe by using the link in the footer. If you like what you've just read, feel free to forward to anyone whom you think would enjoy this content. Spread the love dear reader, thank you and see you next month!

Stay well and write lots,

Steph~
@stephanellaw

Have You Heard...?

My friend Nik Perring is full steam ahead at his blog with a raft of fabulous interviews with many talented writers. Nik has recently published his collection of short stories, Not So Perfect, and is writing the afterword to The Creative Identity anthology of the winning short stories (yes, our anthology).

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If, like me, you are interested in the creative process at large, and not just the writing one, I dare you to have a look at this site without signing up there and then. And, please, do not stress over the, 'But I can't draw' thing. Everyone can and the whole point here is to try something that makes you feel ever so slightly uncomfortable about your creative prowess. Proceed unafraid. 
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My other friend (and also fellow Mancunian), Valerie O'Riordan has won the prestigious Bristol Prize with a short story only 350 words long. I'll have a chat with Valerie and will share it with you as a podcast during The Creative Identity online class. For now, check out Valerie's blog where she writes about her MA in creative writing, her broken boiler and her passion for Roger Federer (and who can blame her...?).

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I Can Do It! returns to London in September. If you need to put the spark back into your creativity and, consequently, your life, this event is the thing. You can choose from many workshops run by several creative experts, chief amongst them one of my heroes, the fabulous Julia Cameron. Click here to read more and to book.

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If you cannot go to London, you can always register for the first International Creative Arts Therapies Teleconference which takes place later this month. From your own home, you can follow leading therapists in the creative arts field, including fellow subscriber to this very newsletter Silky Hart, who is going to talk about expressive arts for people living with cancer. Click here for more info and to book.

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And of course there is still time to book Amelia's Experimental Art eCourse! Unleash the natural artist in you with these six fabulous weeks led by artist (and yes, my friend also!)  Amelia Critchlow, starting September. 

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The London Writers' Club is a new enterprise aimed at fostering and supporting writing talent. The best bit about it is that it has a calendar of events and that audio files are available to members who cannot go to the meetings. You don't need to be in London to be part of it. You can sign up from anywhere, but there are only 100 spots available for the first year, so get yours before they all go.

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New on my Amazon wish list is Drawing Lab by Carla Sonheim. It's odd to recommend a book one has yet to read but if only half of what I've heard and read about it is true, then this is probably one of the greatest little books about creativity ever to hit the printers.

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A Round-Up
of
Good Reads


After reading a “laudatory article on Miss Barrett” in Blackwood’s Magazine the young Arthur Hugh Clough decided to buy a copy of her recently published Poems (1844), but soon came to regret this impulsive decision to “patronize poetical talent”, as he confessed in a letter to his friend and poetic collaborator Thomas Burbidge: “I have read about half of Miss Barrett, and am rather disappointed with one long poem which I expected to find good, viz. the Vision of Poets: it is all in support of the Painfulness and Martyrdom Poet-Theory, the which I don’t agree to”. Continue reading on Elizabeth Barrett Browning from The Times Literary Supplement...
 

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In the spring of 1976, before the start of their affair, before he became her husband, before she knew anything about him, Polina had noticed Alec in one or another of the V.E.F. buildings, always looking vaguely, childishly amused.

“If my Papatchka ran the factory, maybe I’d also go around grinning like a defective,” Marina Kirilovna had said to Polina when Alec appeared in the technology department. Continue reading this short story from The New Yorker...


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What to make of last week’s move by the agent Andrew Wylie to cut out the middle men [...] and publish e-books himself as Odyssey Editions (‘wily Odysseus’, geddit?), sold exclusively through Amazon? Continue reading from The London Review of Books...