Spring Season: Talks and workshops for writers

Wednesday 21 April, 7pm-8pm, Tickets £5 + booking fee

Join Richard Benson for this interactive talk aimed at new writers who are considering writing about their own lives. Richard will share his own experiences as an acclaimed memoirist, suggest how you can start to approach your own work, as well as talking you through a few simple exercises to get your writing started (bring a pen and paper along to this session!). Richard will be ready to answer your questions and you’ll also have the opportunity to submit questions in advance, when you book.

Richard Benson’s memoir The Farm: The Story of One Family and the English Countryside, was the story of his family farm in Yorkshire and was shortlisted for the Guardian’s First Book Award and was chosen for Richard & Judy’s’ Book Club. His second, The Valley: 100 Years in the Life of a Family, won the James Tait Black Prize for Biography, and the Portico Prize, and was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize. His new memoir, The Meadow, will be published in 2021.

Chaired by Rebecca Wilkie, New Writing North

Wednesday 28 April, 7pm-8pm, Tickets £5 + booking fee

This interactive talk aims to help new and emerging writers better understand the business of the writing industry. It will cover how to protect your copyright, the role of a literary agent, and highlight the funding and support opportunities are available to new writers. Leading literary agent Clare Alexander will be joined by ALCS’ legal expert Richard Combes in conversation with New Writing North’s Chief Executive, Claire Malcolm. All speakers will be ready to answer your questions and you’ll also have the opportunity to submit questions in advance, when you book.

Clare Alexander became a literary agent in 1998 after more than 20 years as a publisher, latterly as Publisher of Viking and Hamish Hamilton and Editor-in-chief of Macmillan. While at Viking she was the editor of the winners of the Booker Prize, the Orange Prize and the Whitbread prize, the first editor ever to achieve this hat trick. She is currently chair of Aitken Alexander Associates, a major literary agency based in London. 

Richard Combes joined the ALCS legal team in 2002, having previously worked in private practice, and became Head of Rights and Licensing in 2007. His work at ALCS focuses on the development of collective rights and licensing schemes in the UK and internationally, aimed at providing writers with fair remuneration for the re-use of their work.

Chaired by Claire Malcolm, New Writing North

Wednesday 5 May 7pm-8pm, Tickets £5 + booking fee

This interactive talk is aimed at new writers who are thinking about writing short stories or flash fiction. Writer, editor, journalist and broadcaster Désirée Reynolds will talk you through how to approach writing for this genre and answer any questions you may have. Questions can also be submitted in advance, when booking.

Désirée Reynolds is a Sheffield based writer, editor and creative writing workshop facilitator. She has written film scripts, short stories, poetry and flash fiction. Her stories are in various anthologies, both online and in print. Seduce, her first novel, was published by Peepal Tree Press in 2013 to much acclaim. Her short stories have been widely published in various publications and online.

Introduced by Grace Keane, New Writing North

Thursday 13 May, 7pm-9pm, Tickets £15 + booking fee

This workshop is aimed at writers who have begun working on their crime manuscript and are looking for ways to improve and revise it. This is an opportunity to have access to the experience and guidance of award-winning crime writer and editor Jacob Ross. The workshop will contain exercises that focus on how to structure your crime novel, how to approach procedure, and character development. You will be able to submit questions in advance relating to any particular areas you want to resolve in your work.

Jacob Ross is a Grenadian novelist based in Leeds. In 2006 Jacob Ross was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His ‘thrilling, visceral and meditative, and always cinematic’ crime novel The Bone Readers, the first in his Caribbean crime trilogy, won the Jhalak Prize in 2017.

Wednesday 19 May, 7pm-9pm, Tickets £15 + booking fee

There is no definitive way to write your novel. But one thing is certain, your novel won’t write itself—at least not without your help. In this workshop led by acclaimed novelist Yvonne Battle-Felton, we will write, reflect, and discuss a series of writing exercises designed to help you start a novel draft. Exercises will explore creating characters, generating ideas, developing setting, and exploring whose story you’re telling and what they want to say.

Yvonne Battle-Felton, author of Remembered, is an American writer living in Yorkshire. Her writing has been published in literary journals and anthologies. Remembered was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2019) and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize (2020). Yvonne has a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and is a 2019 British Library Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow, and Lecturer in Creative Writing and Creative Industries at Sheffield Hallam University.

Thursday 20 May, 7pm-9pm, Tickets £15 + booking fee

This workshop is aimed at early career writers who are working on a script for television. Writer Afshan D’Souza will introduce writers to writing for screen with a series of exercises taking them through character building, plot and dialogue, and giving participants the tools they need to be able to write the stories they want to see on the screen.

Afshan D’souza-Lodhi was born in Dubai and bred in Manchester. She is a writer of plays and poetry, and was recently commissioned to write and direct a short film for Channel 4 (An Act of Terror) and a radio play for BBC Sounds (Chop Chop).

Thursday 27 May, 7pm-9pm, Tickets £15 + booking fee

Join writer Rommi Smith for this workshop, which will be a mixture of writing and task-based exercises, followed by a Q&A session. Participants will need to bring along a selection of 5-10 poems which are at the core of their idea for their pamphlet or collection.

Rommi Smith is a Manchester-based award-winning poet, playwright and performer. She was the Inaugural Poet-in-Residence for British Parliament, Inaugural-Writer-in-Residence for Keats House and three-time BBC Writer in Residence. She is the recipient of the Northern Writers’ Award for Poetry and in 2021, Rommi is a poet-in-residence for the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere.