Short Fiction: So Much More Than It Seems...
Led by Vanessa Gebbie (www.vanessagebbie.com) One-week Residential Workshop Retreat
Arrival: Saturday, 9 June 2012
Departure: Saturday, 16 June 2012
“A chance to explore in depth the craft of short fiction in all its challenging guises, in one of Ireland's most creatively exciting venues. A chance to focus on acquiring skills that will maximise the chances of your work rising to the top and standing out for the right reasons not only in publication slush piles but also in competitions.
In the company of a well-published, multi-prize-winning short storyist, who is also an experienced tutor, this will be a focused, collaborative workshop retreat during which you will create not only complete new work and the seeds of many new stories, but you will also discover tried and tested strategies for editing and revising your existing work to make it as good as it can be. We will make full use of the local resources to find fresh inspiration. Although biased towards the art and craft of short fictions, we will also be able to explore the relevance of the craft issues to prose poetry and longer works.
Testimonials:
Melanie Veenstra (Amsterdam, The Netherlands): “Vanessa's writing week [May 2011]...wow. Filled with wonderful ideas, challenging exercises, honest and useful critique, quirky prompts, personal insights and great laughs. Her creative methodology and honest sharing of personal experiences as a writer, was clearly aimed at making us cross boundaries, and feel that we can write. In that week, I created so many start ups to stories through writing prompts and exercises that have been developed afterwards and which I've shared publicly, that I'm confident this has contributed to my self-confidence as a writer. It was, combined with walking around the Beara coastline with Jack [the Anam Cara alpha dog] and taking in all its breathtaking beauty, one of the most inspirational weeks ever. And I am not exaggerating!”
Tracy Kelly (Kent, England): “There is some kind of alchemy between the conditions provided by Sue at Anam Cara and the tools offered by Vanessa that made this workshop so successful. Anam Cara provides the perfect conditions in which to write, and Vanessa provides all the tools a writer needs to progress. The short story workshop with Vanessa was an inspirational week for me. I had been skeptical of writing exercises, but – I admit - - they worked, and Vanessa had plenty of other writing tools, too. Vanessa was an insightful, generous tutor who got down to the nitty gritty of short story writing. It plumbed the depths in a way my MA course did not and took my writing in a new direction. As a result, my writing improved, and I left with several stories and seeds of stories (that have since developed into works I am proud of).”
Fiona O’Rourke (Ireland): “I would definitely recommend Vanessa's course to people writing short stories. She had a down-to-earth, relaxed teaching style and there was always room for humour and banter. The one to one session very helpful and inspirational also. Vanessa's encouragement can coax the best out of writers. Also both Vanessa and Sue are a mine of information about the area (pun pun). Overall feedback for Anam Cara - Sue has this retreat down to a fine art, everything is taken care of: shopping, great cooking, warm hospitality, so there is nothing left to do but dedicate valuable time to writing.”
Alison Fisher (Winner of The Bridport Short Story Prize, November 2010): "To prepare to enter The Bridport competition, I did a workshop with Vanessa as I thought someone who has written some wonderful short stories would have a lot to impart, and I wasn't disappointed. She is a great teacher, bursting with enthusiasm and knowledge, and I found her supportive and generous, and perceptive and constructive in her feedback."
Leader's Bio:
Vanessa Gebbie is a prizewinning short story writer, a creative writing teacher, novelist, poet and editor. Her debut novel The Coward’s Tale (published by Bloomsbury in the UK and the USA) was a Financial Times 2011 Book of the Year. She teaches widely, working with writing groups, universities, school students and at literary festivals. In 2010, she was writer-in-residence at Stockholm University, Sweden.
She is also author of two collections of short fiction, Words from a Glass Bubble and Storm Warning (both published by Salt Modern Fiction) and contributing editor of Short Circuit, A Guide to the Art of the Short Story, a collection of essays and writing exercises by prize-winning short fiction writers, which is now in use at many creative writing courses in the UK and abroad.
For more information and to book a place in this workshop retreat, please contact Sue at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or +353 (0)27 74441.
