Photograph by David Travis

‘Time passes. Listen. Time passes.’ Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood

Time does indeed pass. And mostly we don’t stop to listen - we just notice when it’s gone. This year’s Immersive Summer School will mark our tenth anniversary by focusing on the idea of time past, present and future - how we can play with it, manipulate it and cause it to stand still in our writing, and perhaps in the act of writing itself.

Over two days, with four different tutors, we’ll explore techniques and trickeries to capture time on the page, both for our characters and narrators, and for our readers. And in taking this opportunity to write across two days, we'll send ourselves the message that our writing deserves some ring-fenced time.

SET ONE

Wednesday 2 Aug:
TIME TRAVELLING with Paul Lyalls, 10.30am-1pm
TRYING FOR SOME TIME with Nazrene Hanif, 2pm-4.30pm

Thursday 3 Aug:
MARKING TIME with Alison Chandler, 10.30am-1pm
TIME ON YOUR SIDE with Kiare Ladner, 2pm-4.30pm

SET TWO

Wednesday 9 Aug:
TIME TRAVELLING with Paul Lyalls, 10.30am-1pm
THE HUMAN BODY KEEPS TIME with Gwen MacKeith, 2pm-4.30pm

Thursday 10 Aug:
MARKING TIME with Alison Chandler, 10.30am-1pm
TIME ON YOUR SIDE with Kiare Ladner, 2pm-4.30pm

TIME-TRAVELLING POETRY with Paul Lyalls

Time. We race against it, can't find it, buy it, give it, forget about it. And then we wonder where it went. In return it gives us good, bad, wasted, quality, memorable and the worst ever! Time is both a teacher and a healer. Nobody knows how much time they have. It’s the one thing that you can never get back and every single thing in the universe is bound to it.

In this session we will jump into a poetic DeLorean and future back into the past. (If you have time, that is...) We’ll play with poetic form, working strictly with broken rules and unexpected starting points, just as we do in our Writing Room Finding the Poem workshops. We’ll think about motifs and messages to give ourselves new ways of thinking about time. We’ll write at least two poems, share the results and have a lively old time working together!

Time

An extract

from the collection Catching The Cascade, Paul Lyalls

Our hotelier pointed out that
all the clocks in all the hotel rooms
all said different times.
So, in some rooms you were late
and in other rooms you were early.
“It’s not a problem,” said the Nuclear Physicist
breakfasting on the next table.
“Time actually happens four times slower than
we think.”
“Not round here it doesn’t!” rejoined our hotelier.
“Round here, time happens really fast.”
At which, I gazed out of the window
and surveyed the lifeless two-street
regional-coastal town -
which had about as much going
on as a letter that never arrives.
If ever there was an
argument for there not being a God,
this place was it...

Read about Paul here

TRYING FOR SOME TIME: LIFE WRITING with Nazrene Hanif

‘I thought the past was a country to which I could return… to me this meant tumbling the barricade between then and now. So I embarked on my journey, no doubt as blindly as [my grandparents] had on theirs, and in search of people who left behind no traces.’
Saidiya Hartman

Life appears to follow a linear trajectory: we measure years in ascending order; we celebrate milestones from first steps to final moments. But in writing a life, this ordering of time can feel like a struggle. We may feel lost in the mess of memory: we may forget how things started or question when they fell apart; we may dare to ask – is everything happening all at once?

In this workshop, we will journey together through time, connecting (or disconnecting) the dots between past, present, future, even parallel lives. Through reading extracts and following writing prompts, we will experiment with different techniques and discuss their effects, looking to writers such as Virginia Woolf, Carmen Maria Machado, James Baldwin and Annie Ernaux for inspiration.

Whether you're new to writing or in progress on a piece of work, Nazrene hopes that through this class you will discover the pleasure and possibilities of feeling lost. Here, in the disorienting space between then and now, we find our way. We write in the direction we need and want to take.

Read about Nazrene here

MARKING TIME: THE SET-PIECE with Alison Chandler

'There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows!
From Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

Family dinners, birthdays, anniversaries, first dates, deathbeds… The scenes we often remember most when we put down a book are the set-pieces, scenes of aspiration, expectation, confrontation - and potential for huge calamity! 

In this workshop we’ll look at how writers create these memorable, time-stopping moments and how they fit within the book itself. We’ll look at novel and movie extracts, discuss how our favourites work and create our own versions of - if you wish – Eastenders’ Christmas lunch proportions…

Read about Alison here

TIME ON YOUR SIDE: YOUR CHARACTER'S PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE with Kiare Ladner

'Your life is not just a series of present tenses ordered as integers in a great scroll. Everything behind you in the scroll is part of your present tense, and you don’t want to forsake it. You want to honor all of it.' Rachel Kushner

Every character has a past, and a future too. They exist, like us, beyond the fictive present: beyond the scene you’re writing, beyond the story, even.

In this workshop we’ll be thinking about one of your characters over time. How does their past earn its keep in their present? Which aspects of their past (or future) should we include? And how do we do so?

We’ll look at several techniques, from the simple to the more sophisticated. We’ll think about how to deepen the psychological understanding of our characters in a way that doesn’t detract from the narrative momentum but ups the stakes by making readers care more.

Through exercises, we’ll experiment with doing this in our own work. In a spirit of playfulness, we’ll try out methods less familiar to us. And pushing against our natural inclinations, we'll broaden our writers’ resources along the way.

Read about Kiare here

THE HUMAN BODY KEEPS TIME with Gwen MacKeith

‘Timing or rhythm is lived in the body – in heartbeat and breathing, in the menstrual cycle, in walking, running, dancing, sexual coupling, and in earthly rhythms that affect the body’s motions in the repetitions of day and night and the shift of seasons.’ Siri Hustvedt 

In this workshop we will explore how some of the body’s rhythms might inspire us and suggest form and structure to our writing. 

Our special focus will be the heart and the pineal gland. The pineal gland is a small pine-cone-shaped gland in the centre of our brain, sometimes referred to as ‘the third eye’; an internal clock which regulates our circadian rhythm (sense of night and day).   

This session is open to the writing of any genre. You can work with yourself as your subject or with a character you would like to know better through this exploration of the ‘earthly rhythms’ which set the pace and take us through a cycle of day and night, light and dark, wakefulness and dreaming. 

Read about Gwen here