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About the event
At no time in history has nature writing seemed more important and pertinent than now, poised as we are in the midst of a climate crisis. Yet each day as we navigate the welter of alarming reports in the media it is easy to feel a rising sense of helplessness. What can I really do, on my own, to avert a catastrophe? On this workshop the focus will be on redirecting our anxieties into paying deep attention to the wonder of Nature, discovering what it can teach us and how we in turn can contribute to the discussion by paying tribute, through creative expression, to its majesty and power. Join author and experienced writing tutor Deborah Shepard on her writing residency at the historic Karekare Homestead, for a weekend of nature writing in a remarkable location on the margins between the Waitakere Ranges and the Tasman sea. Writing in the homestead and outdoors you will have an opportunity to develop your writing skills and sharpen your powers of observation and analysis through a range of writing exercises, group discussion, and the study of nature texts. Event includes Writing exercises on:
This workshop is suitable for all comers who feel passionate about the natural world. We all have the capacity to write from our personal experience on the subjects that matter to us. On Deborah’s courses you are introduced to techniques and triggers that help strengthen and develop your writing voice. Writing memoir involves an intricate interplay between writing down and preserving your own memories and constructing biographical accounts of the people, including the ancestors, who have left an imprint on your life.
On this course, you will receive tuition on the fundamentals of writing memoir and biography and its ethical implications along with techniques that will assist you to write with flair and originality about the key figures, both living and from the past, who have influenced and helped shape your life. It is suitable for participants who have not yet completed Life Writing 1. When: TBA - most likely the the third week of January Visit the Public Programmes website to make an enquiry: https://www.publicprogrammes.ac.nz/ Come along to The Open Book's monthly cultural extravaganza and find out some secrets. With talks and performances by: * Caren Wilton (oral historian, writer, editor and author of My Body, my business * Deborah Shepard (biographer, latest book The Writing Life) * Alex Taylor (musician) Plus Q&A, snacks and even a glass of wine. IKR! Deborah Shepard and Caren Wilton talk about their recent books based on oral history interviews, and the art of writing from life. Deborah Shepard's book The Writing Life: Twelve New Zealand authors is a series of conversations with leading New Zealand writers. Caren Wilton's My Body, My Business: New Zealand sex workers in an era of change is a collection of life stories of sex workers. Alex Taylor will play some songs. Anna Livesey, poet and corporate strategist, will be your MC. Encompass everything from the complete life to the day-in-the-life.
When: 5 x sessions, Monday 29 April - Friday 3 May, 9:30am - 1pm Where: The University of Auckland, City Campus Course outline Writing memoir involves an intricate interplay between writing down and preserving your own memories and constructing biographical accounts of the people, including the ancestors, who have left an imprint on your life. On this course, you will receive tuition on the fundamentals of writing memoir and biography and its ethical implications along with techniques that will assist you to write with flair and originality about the key figures, both living and from the past, who have influenced and helped shape your life. It is suitable for participants who have not yet completed Life Writing 1. Who should attend?
Identify key writing strengths and continue developing those skills through journaling.
When: 6 x Tuesdays 19 February - 26 March, 6:00 - 8:30pm Where: The University of Auckland, City Campus Course description We are living through increasingly turbulent times, in an age awash in online content much of it edifying and conducive to creativity but some of it disruptive to concentration and to maintaining a more contemplative approach to living and being. This journal workshop, presented by an experienced tutor and journaller, offers a quiet writing sanctuary where you can reconnect with your inner life and discover what is on your mind and what you deeply care about and also deepen your experience of the present. The course includes an introduction to the pleasures of the journal form, with writing techniques and triggers for a series of writing exercises along with discussion and analysis of writing samples from some of the great proponents of the genre: Henry David Thoreau, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, Lord Byron, Thomas Merton, Etty Hillesum, John Keats, Samuel Pepys, Sylvia Plath, May Sarton, Joan Didion, Anais Nin and Kate Llewellyn. This six week course will appeal to people wanting to use the journal for self-exploration, or to develop formal writing skills for other projects, or to chronicle and preserve your daily observations of the world, from the humble and small, to the splendid and sublime. Under Deborah’s gentle guidance you will have five blissful days to indulge your dream and begin your life writing project in a collaborative and supportive environment.
Where: The University of Auckland, City Campus When: 5 x sessions, Monday 21 - Friday 25 January, 9:30am - 1pm Learning outcomes On completion of this course, participants will be able to: continue the reading programme established on the course, using my bibliography and read memoir critically sit down and write with confidence write for online publication continue writing their memoir for book publication, for blogging, as an essay, for a family history project and perform the writing at the monthly Inside Out Open Mic forum. Who should attend? This course is designed for: new writers, people who are interested in writing and are newcomers to the genre people who want to discover their writing voice people who want to record their stories for their family people who want to write and publish their life story people who want to explore their inner world and express their thoughts and feelings and observations and transform them into literature young and older writers people who have written in another genre such as fiction or poetry, or non-fiction and who want to explore memoir. A pioneering generation of writers raised after the Second World War have founded the rich diverse literary landscape that we have today. A dozen of them are the subject of a new book telling their own stories of their lives, published by Massey university Press. The Writing Life is an oral history project in which writers ranging from Witi ihimeara to Joy Cowley, Patricia Grace to Vincent O'Sullivan speak frankly about their own life journeys, the challenges and the opportunities. The book features some rather beautiful portraits by photographer John McDermott. We're joined by the author oral historian Deborah Shepard and one of those rather special writers Tessa Duder.
On Thursday November 8th, Unity hosted a lunchtime discussion between author Deborah Shepard, Massey University Press publisher Nicola Legat, Dame Fiona Kidman, and Patricia Grace about Shepard’s new book The Writing Life: Twelve New Zealand Authors. Shepard conducted interviews with twelve of New Zealand’s greatest living authors, including Grace and Kidman, about their lives, careers, and the art of writing itself. Patricia Grace read a poem by the seminal poet, Hone Tuwhare, as it was one of the first pieces of literature she loved and was an inspiration for her to become a writer. Fiona Kidman read a moving poem about her late husband Ian. All three remarked on Shepard’s candour, respect, and passion as a writer, emphasising how wonderful their experience was working with Shepard to produce this remarkable book. The Writing Life: Twelve New Zealand Authors by Deborah Shepard, $50.00, is available for purchase in store or online here. Article Source: http://unitybooks.nz/counterculture/afterglow-the-writing-life-twelve-new-zealand-authors-by-deborah-shepard/ Date: Thursday, 15 November, 2018
Time: 6:00pm to 7:00pm Cost: Free. You don't need to book. Location: Tiakiwai Seminar Room, Lower Ground floor, National Library, corner Molesworth and Aitken Streets. Entrance on Aitken Street. Contact Details: [email protected] Join Deborah Shepard to hear her account of the genesis of the book The Writing Life. The book began with an oral history project for the New Zealand Society of Authors, that was funded by an Award in Oral History in 2015. The history project was to record the stories of senior members of the New Zealand literary community:
WHEN: Thursday 8 November 12pm
WHERE: Unity Books, 57 Willis St, Wellington Join Unity Books & Massey University Press for a lunchtime event! Deborah Shepard in conversation with her publisher Nicola Legat, and with readings by Dame Fiona Kidman and Patricia Grace. |
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Date
July 2024
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