WRITING INSPIRED BY WINTER
Writer in Residence, Ann Kronbergs, is excited to be offering a Winter Writing Workshop in January 2025 focusing on the wonderful garden at Porter’s Lodge. This afternoon course is for writers of all levels and it follows the recent Autumn Writing Workshop which led to a flourishing of work from participants including poems, short stories and reflective essays.
The course will begin with Session 1 in the garden, by exploring how the spectacle of winter makes an impact on our five senses. With notebook in hand, you will take to the footpaths and observe the skeletal trees in the wooded areas, the leaf-strewn lawns and borders dark with mulch. Whether you’re a beginner who wants to give your inner writing self a chance, or a writer in search of new stimulation, this afternoon course will provide a wealth of sensory and literary sources to help you spill your ideas on the page.
Back indoors in Session 2 you will remind yourself of how winter landscapes crop up in stories and poetry. Take these words of Mr Tumnus to Lucy in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis: “It is winter in Narnia,” said Mr. Tumnus, “and has been for ever so long…. always winter, but never Christmas.” Also, the following lines by Robert Frost from the opening of Stopping b Woods on a Snowy Evening:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
You will learn some of the strategies writers use to evoke the season, and there will be some advice on approaches you can use as you make a start on your own winter piece.
Session 3 of The Winter Writing Workshop will encourage you to pin down an idea for your own seasonal writing project, bringing together your impressions of the chilly season in the Porter’s Lodge garden. By the end you will have written lines of a poem, a story or reflective essay, and you will leave with a plan to complete it soon.
Book online for this workshop below.
Duration: 3 hours 15 minutes
Date: Wednesday 22nd January 2025
Time: 1:00-4:15p.m.
Fee: £30
