These workshops were inspired by a creative writing workshop I wrote for the WEA Women@Work project. My boss at the project had identified the wave of budding writers across the Highlands and wanted to give them the thing they craved. The workshops were a phenomenal success and Lorraine Thomson was the best boss, ever.
Stepping away from that project and establishing my own series of workshops has been tedious, frustrating and many days in the week I shake with nerves at the thought of having to stand up again and teach.
And then, validations come in emails and messages.
A student from my Inverness group was awarded a place at the University of the Highlands and Islands last week – for a creative writing degree. She tells me that I instilled the confidence in her to apply.
She is, of course, incredibly talented, and a joy to teach. She simply required a few exercises to bring her out of her comfort zone and a tutor dedicated to helping her raise the bar she had set for herself.
Likewise, my Forres students are now ready to tackle local politics and ethics with their word-craft.
I love teaching. It is my passion. After a decade or more being coached, nurtured and nagged by Peter Urpeth of Emergents and his ilk, it feels as if I am somehow repaying the multitude of mentors I had. I feel like I am giving back to the creative industry. I feel as if I am doing the thing I was always meant to do. It is as if I have found my purpose in life. Even my friends are made to sit at my kitchen table to learn to free-write the stuff inside their subconscious. I have created websites for friends and students, showing them internet domination tricks. I have edited other peoples’ ramblings so that they make sense and can be published (this is very time consuming work and I charge for it) and then submitted to literary publications on their behalf.
On Fridays in Forres from 11am – 2pm and Sundays in Inverness from 11am-2pm, I teach small groups of men and women and young adults how to shape the stuff of their souls.
I would LOVE to continue to do this, but, I need your help, please.
Spread the word. Tell your friends. Tell folks in the pub.
My students describe me as ‘gifted and inspirational’. They grow and develop as writers week after week. I teach you everything until you are ready to fly. Come, join us. Everyone is welcome, aged fifteen and over.
The Old Mill, Brodie, Forres on Fridays – This is the Brodie Literary Gathering
The Bike Shed, Merkich, Inverness on Sundays from 11am- 2pm. Workshops covering poetry, characterisation, blogging, writerly voice development and writerly opportunities.
I will travel anywhere if you pay me. I will read your writings, help shape your stuff and do my best to deliver you to the world at large as a writer, author or poet.
The cost is £35 per workshop. For this you get intensive training in all things writerly. You learn a mindfulness technique. And you get to send me your work for critique!
Please contact me, Orla Broderick via yourinnerwriter@icloud.com
or, use the form…