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Event 16 - General and Children's Writing Workshop with Vincent McDonnell |
November 29, 2003 |
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The Writer's Workshop, hosted by
Vincent McDonnell at the Craft Centre in Midleton was a huge success
with one of the biggest crowds ever seen at a workshop organised by
the group. |
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Event 15 - Poetry Workshop with Gregory O'Donoghue |
October 04, 2003 |
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A workshop on writing poetry, at Courtyard Craft Centre, was run by Gregory O'Donoghue, poetry editor on South Word. The event, organised by the group, was funded by a grant from Cork County Council. Every writer gave a copy of their work to all other members of the workshop, who studied it for several minutes in silence and then gave their opinion of it to Mr O'Donoghue, who then gave his more professional assessment, utilising some of the comments already made. The one surprising part of this approach was that each member was also required to say if they liked or disliked the piece. Now tastes will sometimes differ. There are many published and acclaimed poems that are not to everyone's liking, and like or dislike is not relevant to whether the poem is well constructed or not. It also introduced a tone of negativity that was contrary to the spirit of a workshop which was organised in the first place to encourage as well as help aspiring writers. Mr O'Donoghue appeared to hold the belief that not all subjects are acceptable for poetry, which was also rather disconcerting, and not entirely true. One has only to sample a little of the field of poetry to realise this. He also made the statement that "poetry has never been properly defined" - apparently in spite of the efforts of the dictionaries - which, if it were true, would mean that poetry has no rules except for those you make up as you go along and it also begs the question as to how one might practice something "that has never been properly defined". Apart from those misgivings, which were solely on the part of this writer, Mr O'Donoghue, gave very detailed criticism and advice to all who participated. |
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Event 14 - Annual General Meeting |
October 02, 2003 |
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SECRETARY'S REPORT. Oct. 2002-0ct.03.
Meetings.
Since our last AGM our meetings
have continued to be held on the first Thursday of every month in the
Courtyard Craft Centre in Midleton, except for two occasions. The
first of these was in January 2003 when we omitted the usual meeting
because it would have fallen on a day (2nd Jan.) inconvenient to most
members; and the second was in May 2003 when we took part in the
Bealtine Festival Reading organised on 1st May (first Thursday) by
Midleton Library instead of holding our own usual meeting on that day.
Resources. See Treasurer's report. We have been informed (9th May 2003) by Cork County Council that we have been awarded a grant of €400 for this year, though we have not received any of this money yet. Midleton Urban Council has given us an unsolicited grant of €300. Subscriptions to the Group continue to be €15 per person per annum.
Activities.
'Specimen' continues to be
published monthly by Tim Houlihan, and copies are distributed to
members and the Midleton Library. As they are for private
circulation, the pieces included in 'Specimen' are not disqualified
from entry in competitions. Tim also maintains the Group website, on
which members' work is shown with their consent. It should be noted
however that this showing does count as actual publication.
Future Plans.
It is hoped to arrange a workshop
on Writing for Radio for a date in the spring of 2004, when John Mac
Kenna (late RTE) says he will be free to conduct it.
Helen Kahn Secretary. |
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Event 13 - Short Story Workshop with Vincent McDonnell |
July 12, 2003 |
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A workshop on short story writing, presided over by Vincent McDonnell, was held in the courtyard Craft Centre. There was an attendance of thirteen at the workshop, about three of whom were guests. Some members had sent copies of their stories to Vincent in advance of the workshop and, at the start of the session, he explained that he would give advice on an individual basis on the writing of a short story, rather than give an overall view. In order to demonstrate that his marking up of members stories did not mean that there was anything seriously wrong with them, he displayed one of his own manuscript stories, which had his own corrections marked on it. It was easy to see that this gesture was appreciated by the members. Again on the placing of stories, his sensible advice was to persist and not be defeated by rejection. He cited as an example, a story of his own, which had numerous rejections, but which he, himself, liked, and which eventually won first prize in the Ireland's Own Short Story Competition. Sue Forde took photographs of the workshop, so the possibilities will have to be looked at of having a photographic page on this site, to give an illustration of such events. |
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Event 12 - Midleton Writers Group Gathers |
May 1, 2003 |
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On a lovely sunny, first Thursday
in May 2003, Midleton Writers Group were invited by Emer McGrath, our
local librarian, to hold our monthly meeting inside Midleton Library
instead of at our normal venue upstairs in the Gallery Courtyard. The
Library is located right in the centre of town on the main street,
with huge windows allowing plenty of spring sunshine to light up our
words and warm our limbs. |
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Event 11 - Poetry Workshop by Ros Cowman |
March 9, 2002 |
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The group attended a poetry workshop, hosted admirably by Ros Cowman. This was arranged on strength of reports on the excellence of her workshop during the writing seminar at the ECAD centre, on October 13th last. During a pleasant afternoon, Ms Cowman outlined her convictions that the five senses should play a big part in the life of any writer and that a writer should thoroughly absorb a subject before trying to describe it in words. Work that had been submitted to her by two of the group, was constructively criticised and helpful suggestions made. During the workshop, Ms Cowman produced various aromatic items and asked each of the class to smell them, and then write a brief description of what memories might be unearthed. The responses were brief and even similar in some cases, but in others latent memories were stirred. Alas, apart from those brief notes, no other writing was done during the workshop, although Ms Cowman did offer to criticise any items that the members might choose to send her. Because Ms Cowman had to be back in Cork, the workshop carried right through without the usual break, but after Ms Cowman left the members had tea/coffee and biscuits and discussed the workshop, with which most of them were satisfied. |
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Event 10 - Writing Course by Anthony Healy |
November 10 - 17, 2001 |
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On Saturday 10th and Saturday 17th, Anthony Healy gave a course on writing which was organised and attended by members of the group, along with members of Great Island Writers and a few other people. Run very much on academic lines, with a presentation flip-over easel, Mr Healy outlined, with enthusiasm, the accepted structures of writing (Beginning, Middle and End) or, putting it in slightly longer form, Get them interested (Beginning), keep them interested (Middle), and do not disappoint them (Ending). Because of the flip-over device, the lessons had very much an aspect of teaching by slogans. For example, A Good Book has a Good Hook. The trouble with using slogans is that they often do not convey the full meaning intended, or sometimes convey the wrong meaning altogether. Many a bad book starts off with a Good Hook. Good Hooks are not always evidence of a good book. Having experience of writing for television, Mr Healy usefully explained the enticements used before an advertisement break in the programs to tempt the reader back for the second part (the Hook again), and the subjugation of the writer's wishes to those of the publisher/producer and, ultimately, of the readers/viewers. Keeping the session on a tight schedule, Mr Healy finished the first part on the stroke of the hour and, in the second part, mentioned various novels and stories which he felt illustrated his points, forgetting or bypassing the fact that many successful, novels and books have not used conventional methods, and that there are, as always, exceptions to the rule. On the second course on the 17th, Mr Healy dealt with characterization, emphasizing what, perhaps, a lot of us forget, that a character is not a real person, merely a collection of words. He explained how to delineate a character without reams of writing, how a character may develop during the course of a story/novel and how events in the story/novel may put their imprint on the character. At the tail end of the session, he answered questions and gave advice, although his confirmation of the Scrooge-like mind set of publishers might well have put off those who were contemplating publication. |
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Event 9 - Seminar On Creative Writing |
October 13, 2001 |
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(Some of) the group went to the seminar on creative writing organised by East Cork Area Development (ECAD) in association with the Irish Writers Centre, and there renewed acquaintance with members of Great Island Writers, who also turned up for the event. The morning session was given by Conal Creedon, writer-in-residence with Cork County Council. A free and easy speaker, he essentially advocated an independence of the traditional rules and structures which govern writing, and not letting those rules get in the way of what you have to say. He gave us some examples of his own writings and amazing experiences, which were as good as many - and better than most - professional comedy routines. He also read three of his poems, which were probably as entertaining as his prose, but they were delivered so fast and with such a convolution of words, that it was not possible to judge. Our only clue to what they were about was the background to them, which he outlined beforehand. The afternoon session, unfortunately, was held in two different rooms, for workshops given by two different writers. This was a disappointment to people who would have liked to attend both workshops, and was a bit of a gaffe by ECAD, who otherwise organised the event well. About six people attended the workshop run by Roz Cowman, which dealt mainly with poetry, but as the diarist writer did not attend it, he cannot give details. In the other room, sixteen people watched Mary Leland run a workshop for short stories and - unlike Conal Creedon in the first workshop - she was very strong on correct structure and traditional techniques, although she stressed that the "tricks" were something that could be learned by anyone and that there was a lot more to writing than the rules, although the rules might give it its form. She gave us photocopies and quoted extracts from Sean O'Faoilain's The Short Story, and the entirety of a short story by Jane Gardham. She then outlined a short story of her own, quoting extracts, to illustrate how an anecdote can be turned into a story, following the rules of composition and technique. To the diarist, it did not seem to quite succeed, that technique may have stifled naturalness, but it is not fair to judge, since only short excerpts were given, and the main power of any story is obviously in the style of the writing and the choice of the words used. During the morning break, and at the end of the evening, we were treated to tea in hygienically white cups (complete with hygienically white saucers), and genteelly small pieces of food, as mysterious in origin as in taste. ECAD were also running an envoirnmental and energy resource essay competition, but one of the prizes, entombment in the Imokilly People, was not very encouraging ... |
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Event 8 - Secretary's Report 2000-2001 |
October 4, 2001 |
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Last month the group left their long-standing meeting room (cheap: free) at The Meeting Place in Connolly Street, which is at present up for sale, and moved to a new meeting room (expensive: £20 per session) at The Craft Centre in The Courtyard off the Main Street. The group would like to thank the present proprietor of The Meeting Place for giving us the use of his room for so long, at a time when we were in pecuniary difficulties. (Excuse me, but sometimes I just love using antiquated words.) The Annual General Meeting was held on October 5th. Below is the secretary's report, which details the group's past year and makes recommendations for the future. -Tim Houlihan MIDLETON WRiTERS GROUP. Secretarys Report 2000--2001. At the Annual General Meeting of the group held on 4-10-2000 the following officers were re-elected:
Tim Houlihan, Chairperson,
Helen Kahn Secretary. |
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