I’m facilitating a six-week course “Lives of Girls & Women: Fiction Writing” taking place at Block T starting on Tuesday, January 17th (19:00 to 21:00).

The course fee is €150 (€75 booking fee).

Booking details are available HERE and the full course outline is below:

LIVES OF GIRLS & WOMEN: FICTION WRITING

How can we create complex, believable female characters in our fiction-writing and represent the lives of girls and women in a way that is compelling and authentic?

Over the course of six weeks we will explore the work of established writers as both an inspiration and a guide for creating our own character-rich, well-crafted fiction. We will explore topics including moving beyond the limitations of “likeable” women characters; representations of the female body in fiction; and utilising the folkloric tradition to subvert gender norms.

Sessions will also focus on elements of practical fiction-writing craft. Participants will have the opportunity to receive constructive feedback on their work-in- progress – be it short story or novel extract – in a supportive environment.

This course is suitable for anyone who would like to hone their literary fiction-writing skills, with a particular view to writing compelling women characters.

Classes will run for 2 hours, and the first half of the session will be spent discussing the themed reading material (emailed to participants in advance). We will focus also on a different element of craft each week: point of view, character, setting, dialogue, description, and mood/tone.

The second half of the session is a practical workshop where participants will have the opportunity to share their prose with the group and receive constructive feedback on their work-in- progress.

This could be new work generated by our sessions, or work that the participants are already working on themselves.

Week 1 – Girlhood // Element of craft: Point of View

Week 2 – The Curse of Likeability // Element of craft: Character

Week 3 – A Time and A Place For Everything // Element of craft: Setting

Week 4 – Family Matters // Element of Craft: Dialogue

Week 5 – Writing on the Body // Element of Craft: Description

Week 6 – The Feminine as Folklore // Element of Craft: Mood/Tone