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November 2011
Burning the Peripherals—one-day creative writing workshop with Felicity Plunkett
“Writing poetry is a tyrannical process. You’ve got to go so far, so fast, you’ve just got to burn away the peripherals.” [Sylvia Plath, BBC interview with Peter Orr, 1963]
Vladimir Nabokov once commented that ‘my pencils outlast their erasers’.
Poet and writing teacher Steve Kowit puts it this way: ‘If there is any “secret” to writing, it is rewriting – a process that can be every bit as exciting as getting that first draft down on paper.’
“This workshop will focus on what Kowit calls the art of rewriting,” says Felicity. “After looking at some examples of powerful compression in writing, we’ll play with some creative exercises that draw attention to paring writing back, or ‘burning the peripherals’. There will then be an opportunity to workshop a piece of writing you have drafted. This will involve feedback and suggestions, and developing the writing itself. Through working on others’ drafts, and considering some approaches to this, we will focus on the skills of critical and creative engagement that help to grow and polish writing. Throughout the day inspirational ideas from writers, editors and a wealth of resources will be discussed, along with practical exercises and approaches, all designed to empower writers to hone and edit their work to make it go, as Plath says, as far and fast as it can.”
DATE: Sunday 6 November, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.
VENUE: NEWC
COST: $55 members / $65 non-members
BOOKINGS: NEWC, Phone 6772 7210 or email newc44@dodo.com.au
Felicity Plunkett is a widely-published reviewer, writing for newspapers and journals including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian, Australian Book Review and The Canberra Times. Felicity spent nine years of her academic career at UNE, where she was awarded a Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2002.
Her short story ‘Ruined Girls’ was commended in the Josephine Ulrick Prizes in 2010, and another, ‘Sleeping Like a Baby’ was a winner in the ABC Radio National ‘writers on our wavelength competition’ and produced for radio in 2003.
She was for two years a winner of a $5000 poetry prize in the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize for ‘young poets of unusual promise’. Her debut collection of poetry, Vanishing Point, won the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Prize and was shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards, the Arts ACT Judith Wright Prize and the Anne Elder Award.
Poet and critic David McCooey reviewing the collection described it as “extraordinary... dynamic ... intensely original and often comic” and Plunkett as a major new talent. Writing for the American journal of Australian Studies Antipodes, A. Frances Johnson wrote of ‘indelible emotional power’, ‘cut-glass brilliance’. ‘Plunkett’s poetic invocations of female desire … are often matchless’ and the collection ‘ a subtle marriage of irony and emotion’. Poet Stephen Lawrence praised an ‘intense, lyrical debut’.
See also: Yve Louis interviews Felicity Plunkett (2011)
Inquiries
All workshops must be booked and paid for in advance. For information about the program or to book for events:
Phone (02) 6772 7210 or send an email message to newc44@dodo.com.au
NEWC membership entitles you to do the workshop at the reduced member rate.
You can become a member when you book a workshop. Our annual membership fees are:
| Adults: | $30.00 including GST |
| Students (tertiary): | $20.00 including GST |
| Students (under 18): | $15.00 including GST |
Venue
Unless otherwise stated, all events will be held at the New England Writers' Centre (NEWC), in the Neighbourhood Centre, 129 Rusden Street, Armidale (between the Council Building and the Town Hall).
Access
During opening hours and workshops, access is through the Cinders Lane car park (first door on left, in the corridor).
Parking
There is a one-hour parking restriction in the Cinders Lane carpark.
The New England Writers' Centre is assisted by the NSW Government through Arts NSW.
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