Next courses start
Course schedule for next course:
9 weeks: 18th February
- 21st April 2008
9 weeks of inspirational exercises and prompts
plus a chance to concentrate on a piece of your own work and get feedback.
Cost: £150/AUS$370
To register please email info@newmediawriting.com
Season of
Inspiration is back again with our trademark supportive, friendly,
online writing community and all-new inspiration!
Yet again we will be dipping into a variety
of sources of inspiration, from nature to music to landscape. From
mesostic poems to mystery stories, there'll be formats and genres to
experiment with. We aim to provide inspiration for writing that'll
see you through the rest of 2008. We offer support, exercises and creative
bolstering. Come whether you're bursting with ideas to try out or whether
you want to rediscover your creativity. Designed so that you can work
at your own level (whether you're starting out as a writer or seeking
inspiration for your next publication) with the support and encouragement
of a writing community and two tutors. This is the online equivalent
of a writers' workshop, not a lonely self-study course. Students are
welcome from anywhere in the world (the course is run in English).
The tutors
Sharon Rundle and Helen Whitehead
Sharon Rundle is
a published writer, fiction consultant and adult education tutor. Her
work has been published and broadcast in Australia and internationally.
Her most recent published story appears in "Encounters: Modern
Australian Short Stories" (Five Mile, Australia, November, 2006).
Other recent publications include two stories in "Beyond the
Grave" an anthology of Sydney writers, (In the World, Australia,
2005) and a literary essay "Strutting Our Stuff: Sujata Sankranti’s
'The Warp and the Weft'"in "Desert in Bloom, Contemporary
Indian Women’s Fiction in English" (hard cover, Delhi,
India, 2004). Sharon’s stories have won literary awards including
a Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She has also published books on
writing. Sharon finds new media exciting and has contributed to several
online writing projects as well as teaching online writing courses
for trAce Online Writing School (UK). She is a Writing Fellow of
the Fellowship of Australian Writers; and is also co-ordinator of
the University Technology Sydney Alumni e-community Online Writer’s
Network and editor of their monthly e-zine. She has a degree in Adult
Education (UTS) and teaches English and writing courses for tertiary
institutions in Australia and the UK. As a manuscript consultant,
she assists writers to develop fiction works in progress in Indigenised
Versions of English or Global Englishes. Sharon is based in the Hunter
Valley, Australia. Website: www.roundtablewriting.com
Helen Whitehead is a
writer and editor who has been working with online media since 1985.
She explores science, family and spirituality and is particularly
interested in writing at the interstices where these themes meet and intertwine.
She has led collaborative webwriting projects and has taught writing and
the Internet to a variety of groups, from 6-year-olds to attendees at the
Arvon Foundation residential writing courses in Yorkshire, UK. In 2000/2001
she was the recipient of a UK Year of the Artist Award to create a website
Web Warp & Weft, based on stories from textile workers and the many correlations
between textiles and computers from the Jacquard loom up to date. She holds
an MA in Writing from The Nottingham Trent University, where she specialised
in hypertext fiction on the web. She was website editor and project developer
for the trAce Online Writing Centre, and Manager of the trAce Online Writing
School from 2000-2005. She is an E-learning Consultant with Reach
Further Ltd., and a member of Professor Gilly Salmon's
Beyond
Distance Research Alliance at the University of Leicester. Helen is based
in Nottingham, UK. www.HelenWhitehead.com
Blog at www.periodicfable.com
What previous students have said:
"Though I am a
published writer (I have an anthology of Short Stories in my name)
I must say I have benefitted from the Season Of Inspiration
course in
a big way. Can creative writing be taught? It is a much-debated question.
Story telling, they say, is a gift, not a skill which can be learnt.
Helen
and Sharon have proved this wrong.
Having participated in Season of
Inspiration I feel there is neither a magic moment nor a magic wand
which
can transform you into a writer. A story teller however gifted she
or he may be must also be a wordsmith. You may have most original and
inspiring ideas.
But all stunning ideas do not end up as stunning stories or a stunning
poems. Why?
It is here that a course like SOI can come
to your rescue. Perfectly and comprehensively structured, SOI gives--
as it should--
equal
importance to concept and technique. I particularly liked the way Helen
and
Sharon used images and visual metaphors as prompts to get you set on
a
narrative. This is a subtle but extremely effective device or a ploy
on the
part of the instructor, which urges you to go beyond and beneath the
surface
and arrive at insights and epiphanies which, incidentally, is the dream
of
every writer. SOI is a road map to aspiring writers.
It is a truly
inspiring
course. I felt the nine weeks I spent with Helen and Sharon and the
fellow
participants in SOI were over too soon. Though hectic and demanding
it was a
refreshing and enjoyable experience."
Sujata (Haryana, India)
"This was the best online
writing course I have ever done. Writers were given the freedom to
be creative without the unnecessary restrictions of
other online courses, but whilst also respecting the feelings of other
course members (and the instructors). The feedback was useful and
constructive - I was praised for the aspects of my writing that worked
well
whilst being given advice on how to improve my work (exactly what I
expect
from a top notch course). The technical aspects of the course were
excellent
in terms of layout, ease of access to lessons and general use of the
forums. The other students were amazing. I loved the chat sessions and the
terrific
effort by Sharon and Helen to accommodate all students' time zones.
The support I received from everyone when I experienced major
technical problems
with my computer was fantastic and really made me feel part
of a community of writers. Lastly and not of all least, the exercises we were given
each
week were fabulous and very much encouraged my creative spirit. I have
learned so much from this course."
Julia (WA, Australia)
"I have found Season Of Inspiration
better each time I took part. Both students and tutors were
keen and enthusiastic. The interactions have been
helpful, stimulating, forthright, and most importantly,
honest. The materials
were more than ample and well diversified to cater for different students'
individual needs. There was no pressure but a lot of pleasure
and
fun to be in the SOI course. It has been very productive
for me even when I was away overseas for 4 weeks. As a bonus I have improved my English
through
interacting with the others. I would strongly recommend
it to anyone
who aspires to be a writer and to writers who want to be better
writers. I
certainly would recommend it to potential students who are not born
with English as their mother tongue."
Andrew (NSW, Australia)
"The course really was inspiring.
The tutors were knowledgeable, supportive and flexible and
I enjoyed communicating with other writers from around the
world. I would wholeheartedly recommend a Season of Inspiration
course to
anyone looking for prompts and encouragement to explore their own writing
and develop their critical faculties, particularly if the time they
have
available to write is limited or variable, or they aren't sure how
to get
started. Season of Inspiration gave me a whole lot of new beginnings."
Mazzy (Bath, UK)
The aims of this course are:
1. to explore inspiration in our environment
2. to investigate your own creativity
3. to develop regular writing habits, exploring freewriting and
journalling
4. to generate a collection of ideas and drafts that can be built
into finished works in future
Indicative content
* Writing journal and blog prompts
* Freewriting and journalling
* Nature and landscape
* Writing from place
* Inspiration from colour
* Mesostic poetry
* Short stories
* Playing with words
* Making connections with food
* Choosing a form in which to write
* Turning inspiration into a finished work
* and more!
Note that the course will be flexible to respond to the particular
needs of the group, so topics may vary.
Typical reading (not obligatory)
Julia Cameron: The Artist's Way
Natalie Goldberg: Writing Down the Bones
Patti Miller: Writing Your Life
Robert Olmstead: Elements of the Writing Craft
Stephen King: On Writing
The Dawn Quilt
The Noon Quilt
A varied reading list of material available online will be provided
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course you should be able to:
* Nurture your creativity and maintain regular writing habits
* Look for inspiration in a variety of places and situations
* Identify a form or genre you enjoy writing in
* Be ready to take a piece of writing onto a final draft
Typical assignments
Students will be expected to keep a writing journal and post an extract
at least once a week of 200-500 words. One piece of writing of up to
1000 words (or 10-20 lines of poetry) should reach first draft stage
by the end of the course. Students will be expected to comment on one
anothers' drafts.
Pre-requisites for this course
You will need to:
* be able to use Word, WordPerfect or other word-processing program
* be familiar with use of a browser
* be able to use search engines
* be able to write and understand English reasonably fluently
* be prepared to write something, however brief, most days
This course is not
a self-study course but takes place in the context of a friendly, supportive
online community - a typical writers' workshop - so you should expect
to log on to the forums at least 2 or 3 times a week and will receive
feedback
from
other students
(as
well as tutors) and be expected to provide it to other students. If
you have any queries about the format please contact us.
How to register
To register please email Helen
Whitehead/Sharon Rundle at info@newmediawriting.com. Before the course
we will send you an electronic invoice.
This course is a development of
one we taught for the trAce Online Writing School.
Season
of Inspiration Course Space