You can find more information via the links above or at Masterclasses. Classes earlier this year paid attention to the narrative content that makes up our stories: character, setting, plot. In these autumn classes we’ll think about ways to enhance how we tell those stories and bring them to rewarding conclusions. We’ll also talk about practical matters and real-world contexts: readers, feedback, revision, knowing when to be done. All classes are stand-alone and run live on Zoom from 6-7.30 pm London time.
2. As a taster for Perspective & Style later this month, I made a post on Substack about literary style: A Case of Style. I used Kent Haruf’s Our Souls At Night as a case study, and also talked about classic prose style, minimalism, maximalism, and what I call blockbuster style. (Ah! How I miss blockbuster style.)
3. Over the summer I also posted a few of my older stories and essays on Substack: Fiction & Essays. I’m not sure I got many new followers – I’m not sure I’m very good at that part of social media, and you do wonder if you’re just adding to the noise. (I never want to hear the word coach outside of the context of public transport again – and it’s part of my job!) But sharing my stories was more satisfying than I expected – it was good to connect my writing with various friends, colleagues and other people who, e.g., don’t have access to literary journals gathering dust on bookshelves in libraries in Colorado.
4. I’m no longer using Twitter. You can find me on Instagram for work and play (which currently is mostly gardening, even if that too feels a bit too much like work at the mo). And Substack too, of course. I guess Substack might replace some of what I’ve done here on my blog, but for now I’m keeping this going with occasional updates, and there’s an extensive archive of resources here too.
5. A quiet summer. I visited Kew Gardens frequently. Enjoy a couple of pics below of the Palm House and inside the Water Lily House. Also enjoy this lovely profile of Kew botanist and water lily specialist Carlos Magdalena from the New York Times: Risking His Own Extinction To Rescue The Rarest Of Flowers.
In January I am starting live monthly masterclasses on Zoom. They are designed for writers who want to explore craft and process in writing while learning more about the business and culture of publishing.
Masterclasses will run live on Zoom for 90 minutes. They will include discussion on that month’s topics plus a brief writing exercise and a session of Q&A.
Every masterclass unit will also come with homework, e.g., brief preparatory readings as well as a writing exercise or two. This will be emailed to you a week before we meet on Zoom, and will be optional – you don’t need to have completed these activities to take part in the Zoom class.
Each unit will also come with a workbook that will be made available after the Zoom class. It will include notes on craft, resources, and reading suggestions, and most importantly will give you writing experiments and ideas to try out in your own work. The after-class mailing will also include any further recommendations that might arise from our class discussion.
Classes are live, so recordings will not be available if you can’t make them at their scheduled times.
Future masterclasses for 2024 will cover: setting and situation; story and plot; point of view and narration; showing and telling; structure and form; genre and readership; endings. A prose style intensive in the summer will look at: parts of speech; sentences and paragraphs; voice and style.
I’m also hoping to run pop-up Zoom workshops on topics such as tarot and writing, the Four Elements practice, and specific genres or techniques. I might run a workshop focused on specific pieces of writing and feedback later in the year too. More on all that anon.
You can drop into individual stand-alone classes, or you can take them in sequence across the year as a comprehensive foundation in the basic tools of good writing. Think of it as a craft course for an MFA or MA in writing – you might like to sign up for some of these classes as a supplement to the DIY MA in creative writing.
The emphasis of the masterclasses is very much on craft, though January’s unit on Beginnings will pay attention to matters of process too: getting started or restarted, and maintaining a writing practice. I’m a great advocate of drafting as well as exploratory practices such as Field Work. Later classes will draw more explicitly on my experience in publishing, e.g., when we talk about genre and readership. (Note: I use the word readership rather than market.)
To pace things, I’ll probably focus each Zoom class on maybe half a dozen key tips or takeaways, though the workbooks will offer resources that will let you take things deeper at your own pace.
Beginning as well as experienced writers are welcome. I find a mix in most of the classes I now teach, and I am always a big believer in cultivating Beginner’s Mind to keep writing fresh and authentic.
I’ve been teaching online in some form or other for twenty years – Naropa’s low-residency MFA was one of the pioneers in online learning. My teaching style is informal and enthusiastic, and I welcome questions. I want to be able to help writers wherever they are in their writing, empowering them with what they need to know: questioning myths, overcoming doubts, guiding writers to understanding. I’m particularly interested in cultivating intuitive methods in writing, and my classes often bring in contemplative practices, tarot, or other approaches that take us beyond the page.
Like many teachers I feel that reading is one of the best ways to grow your instincts in writing, and I often do some close reading in my classes, or invite writers to root around their own bookshelves. I frequently use Annie Proulx’s long short story Brokeback Mountain, as it contains a novel’s worth of story while being short enough to be read in one sitting by anyone coming to a workshop, and it covers so much that’s relevant to discussions of craft: character, setting, scene, structure, prose style – basically, everything. There will be plenty of other literary references too: bestsellers, prizewinners, fan favourites, cult classics, works across genres and forms.
Also in 2024: I plan to continue my discussions of craft and publishing on Substack. As a result, I’m not sure how frequently I shall be blogging here. I’m no longer sure about blogging! Interaction has rarely been as lively as Instagram or Twitter/X (though I’m not at all active on Twitter/X any longer, and I fear my Twitter self never really came to life anyway).
Substack has potential; I worry about information overload, with lots of writers writing about writing(!). But too that denotes serious intent, and community, plus a number of people I know are active there. And I was thrilled to pieces that George Saunders chose to discuss The Child by Bobbie Louise Hawkins for his Story Club on Substack this year. The interaction really enlightened me to the possibility for engagement on Substack.
Hope to see some of you there – or on Zoom! More information on the classes can be found here. Meanwhile, I’ll be maintaining this website, not least as a home for all of these writing experiments.
I’ve not taught a revising workshop in some time, and I’m excited to be doing so again, bringing plenty of new insights and ideas. The world has changed in many ways – and so have we! I’m hoping to fire people up about their writing: owning their visions, expressing them clearly through the craft, finding ways to bring them to readers. It’s what I’ve been doing successfully one on one during covid and beyond, and I’m looking forward to bringing this into a classroom with Words Away again. And what a classroom! The Phoenix Garden is the best.
Also: I promise not to tell you to proofread your submission letters. In fact, I will have things to say about this, as well as other practical matters in the lottery that is publishing. But mostly we’ll focus on the writing – your writing, your stories. Writers of fiction or nonfiction are welcome, as are writers in poetry, screenplay or other forms. It will be of use to writers with complete manuscripts, as well as writers who’ve reached a stage where work-in-progress needs a boost – though given my emphasis on drafting it ought to be helpful to writers at any stage of the development of a piece of writing.
And the tarot workshop is with the lovely people at the Hastings Book Festival, where I ran a workshop last year. They have some great events for writers and readers – check them out if you are in the area. Such gorgeous sun on the sea last year: such light along the coast there. This is a new workshop, but it draws on years of practice, and I’m glad to have the chance to talk about one of my favourite subjects as it relates to writing.
Also:
* Among the current rescrambling on social media, I’m finding much of the most engaging content on Substack: thoughtful, intelligent, well written. I have a slight concern about word overload, but we can be selective. Its potential for interaction is promising. Not much action from me other than Restacks at the mo – but I might reboot my blogging and/or online teaching there. More to come. Find me here: Andrew Wille Substack. Do connect if you are there too.
* I’m also on Threads now. It’s not on browsers right now, I guess, so maybe you can find me via Instagram if you are on your phone app? TwitterX seems pretty inert, and I’m not sure I’ll be keeping that much longer.
* I also have spots for mentoring. Mentors have priority for developmental edits and manuscript reviews. If you’re interested, contact me with details of projects and your intentions in writing and publishing – if it seems a good fit, I can send more information.
I’m taking a break from manuscripts and editing for the rest of August, so I might not be at my desk to answer emails right away. The plaster cast is off! And I’m just about caught up. So now is the time for a bit of rest and physio. I need a break. Just not another fracture!
Summer reading recommendation: Yellowface by Rebecca F. Huang. I’m hoping to reread/read Kent Haruf this month. Support your local libraries and independent bookshops!
The tree above is the black walnut at Marble Hill. Just because! It’s been growing there for 300 years.
At the Nature Matters workshop earlier this month, we read aloud together ‘The Delight Song of Tsoai-Tale’ by N. Scott Momaday. A few lines from the opening:
I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
And I love that line from near the ending. ‘I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful.’ It’s joyful, it’s everyday, it’s an invocation. I love it.
You can watch N. Scott Momaday himself read an excerpt of ‘The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee’ on YouTube. ‘You see, I am alive, I am alive’ – the voice of life, the breath of life run through this poem.
I love the list poem as form. Like I Remember, the I Am poem has the iterative power of repetition, which also lends a strong rhythm to the writing. There is a reason why such poems are often passed down in oral literary traditions.
Repetition brings something of the ritual too, here celebrating the interconnectedness of all things. Feathers, horses, shadows, fish: the personification here is powerful. As Joy Harjo says in a fine short essay, it inscribes the idea that ‘the Earth, all beings, are wired toward healing’. It conveys an affirmative energy.
Also note there are subtle variations bringing shifts in pace to keep our interest: syntax, line length, the use of nouns and verbs and adjectives. And there is plenty of concrete sensory detail to ground us.
Best of all: it’s easy, it’s accessible. You can let your perceptions and your observations and your memories wash over you and through you and out into your writing.
As a writing experiment: write your own Delight Songs, including things that come naturally to you.
You could write a Delight Song based on your favourite associations from the natural world.
You could pack a notebook when you go hillwalking, and write a Delight Song on a mountain top.
You could write a Delight Song sitting on a bench in a park you love, or tap one into your phone as you stand on a busy street corner in the city where you live.
You could write a Delight Song about the books who have made you the reader and writer you are today.
You could write a Delight Song on a special theme (trees, seasons, teachers).
You could write a Delight Song as field work for a character in a novel.
You could write a Delight Song out of whatever speaks to you.
And to fire you up, you might want to watch this first. Another jolt of anthem affirmation. And really: what a feat of choreography!
***
Update, February 2024: N. Scott Momaday died last month. The Paris Review has opened access to its wonderful Art of Poetry interview with him from 2022. As the great man says: ‘I am alive, I am alive’!
A couple of new Four Elements workshops are coming this spring, again in collaboration with Kellie Jackson of Words Away and hosted at the Phoenix Garden in the heart of London’s West End. You can find more information and booking details at the following links:
I’m particularly interested in writing’s relationship with nature this year: how we perceive nonverbal sense experiences of the natural world and translate those observations into words, crafting such moments into poems or shaping them into stories.
In Nature Matters, we’ll look broadly at what might constitute nature writing or Eco Lit as a body of writing, but also acknowledge the presence of nature in its many forms as a feature of any piece of writing. And what, in fact, does it mean to be natural? If weather permits (bring layers and umbrellas!), we’ll write outdoors, gathering observations and making them into literary forms.
In Fragrance Matters, we’ll pay special attention to one particular sense: smell. Perfumer John Evans (aka my husband) will speak about natural fragrances as well as the creation of manufactured ones, and we’ll have chance to get our hands (and noses) on perfume ingredients as stimuli for writing. Again, how can we evoke the nonverbal in words, and how might fragrance bring writing to life and also lend it form and structure? We’ll take our findings into further creative exploration: for crafting a story, poems or an essay, or in building the spine of a longer work.
In advance, I’ll assign optional brief readings and writing exercises that will set the tone for what we do on each day, and each afternoon-long workshop itself will include discussion, short meditations, and plenty of writing. You’ll also get follow-up notes with further writing experiments, reading suggestions, and other resources.
The Phoenix Garden is a magical location for these workshops: in the middle of the city a perfect little oasis full of green life. Later this year I hope to continue our exploration of nature-related themes with workshops on gardens and gardening, food and taste, and death and dying: plenty of earthly and unearthly goods to mine for our writing.
