SCOTLAND’S
CREATIVE WRITING CENTRE
2017 PROGRAMME
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
16
Moniack is a special place. I’ve been coming here for years as a tutor and
there is something about that peace, those views, those surrounding
Highland communities, that edible air and that particular friendly
handful of buildings that brings out the best in people. Behind the scenes,
there’s just he right level of organisation to let a little randomness loose.
I’ve seen all manner of miracles happen on the page at Moniack, heard
all kinds of bravery and made all kinds of friends. My life is now full of
people who have passed through there and work that has finally emerged,
fully formed, from those who have passed through. I’m so glad it’s there.
A.L. KENNEDY
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
17
WELCOME
‘It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write.
Let them think you were born that way.’
– Ernest Hemingway
Dear all,
For 24 years we’ve been running courses from our
Highland hideaway, providing the time and space for
writing, free from the distractions of the outside world.
The rich landscape surrounding the centre along with
the warm hospitality and tuition from some of the
finest writers, creates a potent setting for those with a
work in progress and novices alike.
outdoor workshops to hone your observation skills. For
a short blast of inspiration, we have a Fiction Day with
James Robertson, the Art of Omission.
Welcome to our 2017 programme at Moniack Mhor.
Within the pages of our brochure, you will see a
complimentary combination of tutors who are new
to Moniack Mhor and those who are old friends, such
as Joanne Harris and Melvin Burgess. If there is a
flavour to our courses, it’s islands. Looking across to
the Irish Sea, we’ll see visits from Michael Longley,
Sarah Bannan and Paul Murray. Turning our gaze to
the Outer Hebrides, we have Kevin MacNeil teaching
on fiction and further afield, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir from
Iceland.
As always, we offer a grant scheme that can help with
course fees. Moniack Mhor aims to support in other
ways too. This year we will host a retreat for each
season. We continue to offer our award programme
with Emerging Writer Award and our Writing for
Children and Travel Writing bursaries. Keep an eye out
for tips from our tutors throughout the brochure, like
Occam’s razor, the simplest solution may be the best!
We’ve tried to create a holistic programme with
Starting Out courses in poetry led by Jo Shapcott
and Maura Dooley and fiction with Ross Raisin and
Cynthia Rogerson. If you want to concentrate on
something more specific, Louis de Bernières and Jem
Poster will be focusing on writing character later in
the year. Michèle Roberts and Romesh Gunesekera will
be helping to re-draft short stories. We also welcome
the return of Peter and Ann Sansom who will offer
guidance on poetry writing practice. Our nature
writing course with Sara Maitland and Mark Cocker
will take advantage of our surroundings, offering
4
This year we’ll be celebrating the life of local crime
writer, Josephine Tey by offering a one-day biography
workshop with Jennifer Morag Henderson.
Flick to the back pages to find out more about bringing
a group to Moniack Mhor, the Literary Collective or
our youth programme. If you are passionate about the
writing process and want to progress your ideas, we’ll
be here to help you on your way.
Rachel Humphries
Centre Director
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
CONTENTS
4
6
7
8 - 20
22 - 23
24
25 - 33
34 - 35
36
38 - 39
40
41
42
43
-
Welcome
About the Courses
How to Choose A Course
Courses and Retreats
Calendar of Courses
About The Centre
Courses and Retreats (cont.)
Day Workshops and Events
Awards
How To Book
Partnerships
Youth Programme
Literary Collective
Who We Are
Credits.
Design by James Roberts.
Photography by Paul Campbell, Ruth Tauber, Heather Clyne and
Roddy MacKenzie.
Map on page 39 drawn by Karen Sutherland.
Writer portraits: Jo Bell by Lee Allen, Louis de Berniers by Ivon
Bartholomew, Jim Carruth by Robert Twigger, Horatio Clare by
Caroline Flinders, Maura Dooley by David Hunter, Joanne Harris by
Kyle Photography, David Greig by Aly Wright, Romesh Gunesekera by
Yemisi Blake, Marina Lewycka by Ben MacWilliam, Stuart MacBride
by Mark Mainz, Sara Maitland by Adam Lee, Ann Sansom by Charlie
Hedley, Peter Sansom by Charlie Hedley, Michele Roberts by Viv
Pegram, James Runcie by Charlotte Runcie, Rachel Sermanni by
Mike Guest, Jo Shapcott by Rachel Shapcott & Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
by Sigurjon Ragnar, Josephine Tey image courtesy of The Paterson
Collection.
“Make your verbs do the work.”
SALLY MAGNUSSON
5
ABOUT
THE COURSES
Courses at Moniack Mhor provide an atmosphere
for you to fully immerse yourself in your writing.
The centre is your home for the duration, free from
distractions and where you will find yourself part of a
nurturing writing community. Residential courses run
with up to fourteen writers and each is tutored by two
established, experienced tutors.
All courses have one-to-one tutorials except the
UNTUTORED RETREATS. You can expect at least one
half hour tutorial with each tutor during your stay.
These invaluable sessions will provide the opportunity
to have an in-depth look at your work. Most courses,
with the exception of RETREATS & UNTUTORED
RETREATS, include workshops on aspects of the genre
you are working towards. The majority of courses
provide the opportunity to stretch your legs in the local
landscape, with a walk guided by staff. Often, people
spend their free time doing yoga in the straw bale
studio, running or reading.
Evenings are spent in the company of the group.
Normally, tutors read on a Tuesday evening and a
guest reader visits on Wednesday. On Friday the week
culminates with the fire on in the straw bale studio
sharing what you have created through the week in an
informal ceilidh event.
Food is included in the course price. You will find the
kitchen well stocked; we cater for dietary restrictions
and we can get additional items if requested. Moniack
Mhor staff will welcome you with a meal on the first
night. Once during your stay, you will be part of a
cooking team, preparing a meal for your fellow writers.
You can help yourself to breakfast and lunch is served
buffet style. Alcohol is available.
On some courses, tutors will read a sample of your
work ahead of time to provide more in-depth feedback
on your work.
6
HOW TO
CHOOSE A COURSE
Something for every writer at Moniack Mhor – that is
our aim. We suggest you think about what you want
from a course, then use the advice below to find the
best possible course for you.
TIME: Most of our courses run from Monday to
Saturday, providing time to fully ensconce yourself
in your writing and the tutors’ guidance. If you have
less time, we have two short courses in August and
November, as well as several day events.
GENRE: Our courses cover many genres and choosing
a genre that you work in is a good idea. However, if
the course that works for your free time doesn’t fit
your chosen genre, think around it. We’ve had fiction
writers who come on crime courses to get help with
plot structure and established novelists attending
poetry courses to develop use of language.
EXPERIENCE: Most of our courses are suitable for
writers with different levels of experience, tutors are
adaptable and will work around the group. If you
are new to writing, or indeed coming back to it after
a time, then our STARTING OUT courses will help get
you going. If you are already well on your way with a
manuscript, TUTORED RETREATS are designed to give
you maximum writing time, with one-to-one tutorial
sessions. UNTUTORED RETREATS are an opportunity to
come to Moniack Mhor for an intensive spell of writing
with no tuition.
TUTORS: Courses are tutored by some of the finest
writers in the UK and beyond. They are tutors who
understand the needs of writers and are generous with
their time and experience. We recommend choosing a
course with a tutor whose work you admire, and if you
are having difficulty choosing, read some of the tutors’
work to help you decide.
7
01
JANUARY
RETREAT
If writing is a recent resolution, our January Retreat is the perfect
opportunity to stick to it. Join like-minded writers in a peaceful setting to
knuckle down and see what happens.
MONDAY
23RD JANUARY
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
28TH JANUARY
SINGLE ROOM £300
EN-SUITE ROOM £350
SINGLE ROOMS ONLY
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
“The most useful piece of
advice I received was from Livi
Michael, who said ‘Write like
a reader, read like a writer.’
The trouble is, it becomes a
habit and I find it increasingly
difficult to read like a reader.’
MARINA LEWYCKA
8
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
02
SONGWRITING
WITH KATHRYN WILLIAMS & RODDY WOOMBLE
GUEST: RACHEL SERMANNI
Finding new roads.
Spend a week at Moniack Mhor with two experienced musicians and
songwriters to explore the mysterious idea of songs and songwriting.
Why do we do it, what does it mean? We’ll talk about our favourite
music, and through exercises and co-writing, find new roads into
songwriting and overcome the fear of the blank page.
MONDAY
20 FEBRUARY
TH
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
25TH FEBRUARY
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Roddy Woomble was born in Ayrshire in 1976. He is the lead vocalist
in Idlewild as well as an accomplished solo musician. Idlewild have
released eight acclaimed albums, two of which debuted in the UK top
ten. They have toured throughout the world, as a headline act, and also
as support to REM, U2 and the Rolling Stones amongst others. Roddy’s
solo work totals three albums and includes collaborations with Karine
Polwart, Kate Rusby and Ian Carr. In 2007, Roddy was behind the Ballads
of the Book project, which brought together writers and musicians to
create an album which was released on Chemikal Underground Records.
Kathryn Williams is an acclaimed Liverpool-born, Newcastle-based
singer and songwriter who made her recorded debut with Dog Leap Stairs.
In 2000 its follow-up Little Black Numbers earned her a Mercury Prize
nomination. She has performed and toured widely ever since working
with the likes of John Martyn, The Bombay Bicycle Club and Ray
LaMontagne. Her successive albums received widespread critical praise,
including 2013’s Crown Electric and 2015’s Hypoxia, inspired by The
Bell Jar and produced by Ed Harcourt. Kathryn will be judging the Ted
Hughes Poetry Awards in 2017 and is working with Carol Ann Duffy and
author, Laura Barnett.
Rachel Sermanni: The music of Folk-Noir Balladeer, Rachel Sermanni
has the flesh of Folk but, if you were to cut the skin, you’d find it pumped
with a contemporary, genre melding blood. Born under a rainbow,
Rachel Sermanni has grown into a writer, musician and artist. In all
that she creates, it seems, there remains a preservation of the pure and
mystical, symbolic in that beam of fragmented light that shone, 24
sun-spun years ago.
9
03
CRIME
WITH STUART MACBRIDE & LOUISE WELSH
GUEST: YRSA SIGURÐARDÓTTIR
Good crime writing makes a reader’s heart race and their stomach
turn. Stuart and Louise will share their techniques, tips and experience
to show you how it is done. Through workshops on plot development,
editing and developing tension-building techniques, both writers will
draw upon years of experience to help you improve your writing, no
matter what stage you are at.
MONDAY
10TH APRIL
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
15TH APRIL
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Stuart MacBride is the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the
Logan McRae and Ash Henderson novels. He’s also published a
near-future thriller, a short story collection, a couple of novellas, and a
slightly twisted picture book for slightly twisted children. He was crowned
World Stovies Champion in 2014 and was given an honorary doctorate
by Dundee University in 2015. He tries not to let either of these things go
to his head. Stuart lives in the northeast of Scotland with his wife Fiona,
cats Grendel and Gherkin, some hens, horses, and a vast collection of
assorted weeds.
www.StuartMacBride.com
Louise Welsh is the author of seven novels, most recently in 2015 Death
is a Welcome Guest. She has written many short stories and articles and
is a regular radio broadcaster. Louise has also written libretti for opera
including Ghost Patrol which won a Southbank Sky Arts Award and The
Devil Inside which toured to critical acclaim in 2016. Louise has received
several awards and international fellowships, including an honorary
doctorate from Edinburgh Napier University and an honorary fellowship
on the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. She is
Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow.
Yrsa Sigurdardóttir (b. 1963) is the internationally bestselling
Icelandic crime author of the award-winning Thóra Gudmundsdóttir
series and several stand-alone thrillers. Sigurdardóttir made her crime
fiction debut in 2005 with Last Rituals, which has been translated into
more than 30 languages. Universally hailed as one of the finest crime
writers of our time, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir’s new series about Freyja &
Huldar shows a master storyteller at the top of her game.
10
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
04
FICTION
WITH LESLEY GLAISTER & ANDREW GREIG
GUEST: RUTH THOMAS
Maybe you’ve started writing stories or novels but always run aground?
Or maybe you’ve completed a writing project but have a nagging feeling
that it could be better? In this course we’ll help you hone your writing
skills and offer encouragement and strategies to help you develop further
as a writer. There will be workshops, for fun and inspiration, as well as
ongoing conversations about elements of the craft of writing from the
earliest drafts to revision and editing. In addition to group workshops
and discussions, there will one-to-one tutorials to give you focused
feedback and advice; and of course, plenty of time for writing.
MONDAY
17TH APRIL
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
22ND APRIL
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
PRE-COURSE SUBMISSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Lesley Glaister is a fiction writer, playwright and creative writing
teacher. She received both a Somerset Maugham and a Betty Trask
award for Honour Thy Father (1990), won a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered
Prize for Little Egypt in 2014 and has been short and long-listed for
literary prizes for her other novels. She has had broadcast several dramas
on BBC Radio 4 and her first stage play, Bird Calls, was performed at
Sheffield’s Crucible Studio Theatre in 2004. She teaches creative writing
at the University of St Andrews and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature.
Andrew Greig is one of Scotland’s most respected and prolific writers.
He has written twenty books of award winning fiction, poetry and
non-fiction. His most recent novel is Fair Helen. Born in Fife, he now lives
in Orkney and Edinburgh.
Ruth Thomas is a novelist and short story writer. Her books include
The Home Corner and Things to Make and Mend, and three short story
collections (Super Girl, The Dance Settee and Sea Monster Tattoo). She
is currently a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at Queen Margaret
University; she’s also been an RLF Fellow at the Royal Scottish
Conservatoire and has taught creative writing at St Andrews University.
Her third novel is due out shortly.
11
05
SPRING
RETREAT
Step into Spring with some focused writing time, away from the
distractions of everyday life. This Retreat will give you the permission
to concentrate on that first, third or final draft in a supportive
environment.
MONDAY
8TH MAY
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
13TH MAY
SINGLE ROOM £300
EN-SUITE ROOM £350
SINGLE ROOMS ONLY
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
“You do not need to know every
detail of character and content in
order to write your narrative. If
you put that pressure on yourself
at the start, then you will never
write it. The only time that you
need to know every detail is when
you have completed it.”
ROSS RAISIN
12
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
06
STARTING OUT
IN FICTION
WITH ROSS RAISIN & CYNTHIA ROGERSON
GUEST: JONATHAN BUCKLEY
Diving In.
A week that will give you the inspiration and the impetus to get writing.
Whether you have an idea that has been floating around in your head
for a while, or you simply have a yearning to write, the aim of this
course is to help you find your direction. Through a mixture of guided
discussion, exercises, games and introduction to new texts, you will
develop both your confidence and your skill with the written word, and
leave the centre with a fresh motivation to keep writing.
MONDAY
15TH MAY
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
20TH MAY
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Ross Raisin is the author of two novels: Waterline (2011) and God’s
Own Country (2008), for which he won several awards, including The
Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year and a Betty Trask Award, and
was shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin literary award and the Guardian
First Book Award. In 2013 he was named as one of Granta’s Best of
Young British Novelists. A new novel is due for publication in 2017. He
has written short stories for Granta, Prospect, the Sunday Times, Esquire,
BBC Radio Three, among others, and has contributed to anthologies
including Best British Short Stories. Ross teaches creative writing at
Goldsmiths University and as part of the UEA/Guardian Masterclasses
programme, and is a writer in residence for the charity First Story.
Cynthia Rogerson is the prizewinning author of five novels and a
collection of stories. I Love You, Goodbye was shortlisted for Scottish Novel
of the Year 2013, translated into five languages and adapted as BBC
radio serial. Wait for Me Jack is published 2017. She is a Royal Literary
Fellow at Dundee University and a creative writing supervisor for
University of Edinburgh.
www.cynthiarogerson.com
Jonathan Buckley was born in Birmingham, and studied at Sussex
University, and King’s College, London, where he researched the work
of the Scottish poet/artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. Among other jobs, he
was an editorial director at Rough Guides. His first novel, The Biography
of Thomas Lang, was published in 1997. It was followed by Xerxes, Ghost
MacIndoe, Invisible, So He Takes The Dog, Contact, Telescope,
Nostalgia and The river is the river. From 2003 to 2005 he held a Royal
Literary Fund fellowship at the University of Sussex, and is currently a
fellow at the University of Southampton.
13
07
STARTING OUT
IN POETRY
WITH JO SHAPCOTT & MAURA DOOLEY
GUEST: JIM CARRUTH
Aimed at beginner poets, this course will stimulate fresh work and
encourage you to share it. Bring your notebooks and writing tools to
explore the many ways poetry brings ideas, stories and emotions to life.
The tutors will suit the course to the individual needs of the participants.
Come prepared to write, to be open to techniques and approaches old
and new, and to have fun with language.
MONDAY
12TH JUNE
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
17TH JUNE
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Jo Shapcott was born in London. Poems from her three award-winning
collections are gathered in a selected poems, Her Book (2000). She has
won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Collection, a Costa Book
Award for Of Mutability and the National Poetry Competition twice. In
2012 she was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Poetry.
www.joshapcott.com
Maura Dooley’s most recent collection of poetry is The Silvering.
Anthologies she has edited include The Honey Gatherers: Love Poems and
How Novelists Work. In 2015 she was Poet-in-Residence at the Jane Austen
House Museum, Chawton. Her poems from the residency are published
as a pamphlet: A Quire of Paper. She has directed Literature festivals,
worked with Jim Henson film and Performing Arts Labs and currently
teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Literature.
Jim Carruth has had six well received chapbook collections of poetry
since Bovine Pastoral in 2004. His poetry has won numerous prizes
and he was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson award in 2009. He is the
chair of St Mungo’s Mirrorball and the artistic adviser at StAnza. He was
appointed Glasgow Poet Laureate in July 2014. His first book Killochries
came out in 2015 and was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Poetry book
of the year and The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry and the Fenton
Aldeburgh first collection prizes. His new collection Black Cart comes out
in Spring 2017.
14
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
08
MIDSUMMER
RETREAT
If you’re planning a summer getaway, why not incorporate some writing
time in your trip? Our Midsummer Retreat provides writers with the
peace and quiet necessary to crack on with their projects, amid beautiful
surroundings.
MONDAY
19TH JUNE
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
24TH JUNE
SINGLE ROOM £300
EN-SUITE ROOM £350
SINGLE ROOMS ONLY
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
“The best writing advice was my first, when 17, from Norman
MacCaig. After reading my efforts he said ‘I quite like some of
these, but then I would because they’re quite like some of mine.
Perhaps you should try writing some like your own. And read
more.’
Cutting, funny, true - and helpful.”
ANDREW GRIEG
15
09
MEMOIR
WITH TIM CLARE & SALLY MAGNUSSON
GUEST: RUPERT THOMSON
What makes a good story? How do you select those parts of your life
that will resonate with other people? Why is less often more? What
story-telling techniques are needed to sustain interest? Sally and Tim
will guide you through the myriad questions that come up when you are
writing from life. Through workshops on tutorials, the tutors will help
you with picking the good stories from your life and then transforming
them into engaging work.
MONDAY
3RD JULY
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
8TH JULY
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Tim Clare is an award-winning author and poet. We Can’t All Be
Astronauts, a memoir about jealousy and having one last shot at
achieving your dreams, won Best Biography/Memoir at the East Anglian
Book Awards. His first poetry collection, Pub Stuntman, is published by
Nasty Little Press. He has toured three solo shows internationally, the
latest of which is Be Kind To Yourself. He has performed his work on BBC
2, C4, Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. His first novel, The Honours, is published by
Canongate.
www.timclarepoet.co.uk
Sally Magnusson is an award-winning journalist and writer who
has presented a wide range of programmes for the BBC and authored
a number of books. Her bestselling memoir about her mother, Where
Memories Go: Why Dementia Changes Everything, has been credited with
improving knowledge and understanding of this widespread brain
condition. Out of that experience she founded Playlist for Life in 2013,
a charity that encourages access to personalised music on iPods for
people with dementia to help them reconnect with their memories and
their loved ones. Her previous books include The Flying Scotsman, Family
Life, Dreaming of Iceland, Life of Pee and the Horace the Haggis series of
children’s books. Her first adult novel will be published next year.
Rupert Thomson is the author of ten highly acclaimed novels,
including The Insult, which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize,
and chosen by David Bowie as one of his 100 Must-Read Books of all
Time, The Book of Revelation, which was made into a feature film by the
Australian writer/director, Ana Kokkinos, and Death of a Murderer, which
was shortlisted for the Costa Prize. In 2010, he published a memoir, This
Party’s Got to Stop, which won the Writers’ Guild Non-Fiction Book of
the Year. Rupert Thomson has contributed to the Financial Times, the
Independent, and the Guardian. He lives in London.
16
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
10
FICTION
WITH KEVIN MACNEIL & TIFFANY MURRAY
GUEST: PATRICK GALE
This course will cover a range of topics, from the spark of an idea to
writing an irresistible opening line; from discovering your characters
to shaping a plot; from that messy first draft to becoming your own
most helpful critic; and the development of good writing habits to take
home. You will examine your own writing in a creative and adventurous
community. Whether you are writing fiction, poetry or scripts these
workshops will help you with your narrative, form and the tools you
need to discover these. Kevin and Tiffany will share their personal
approaches to writing.
MONDAY
10TH JULY
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
15TH JULY
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Kevin MacNeil is an award-winning writer from the Outer Hebrides,
now resident in London. He is a novelist, screenwriter, lyricist,
playwright, poet and writing mentor. His latest novel is The Brilliant &
Forever (‘It is a joy to read such an engaging, luminous novel’ -- The
Guardian).
Tiffany Murray’s novels Diamond Star Halo and Happy Accidents
were shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, and the
Guardian selected Diamond Star Halo in their pick of the year fiction. She
has been a Hay Festival Fiction Fellow and a Senior Lecturer in Creative
Writing. Her latest novel is Sugar Hall.
www.tiffanymurray.com
Patrick Gale was born on the Isle of Wight in 1962 and read English at
New College Oxford. He lives on his husband’s farm near Land’s End and
is a keen gardener and cellist. He has written fifteen novels, including
the bestselling Rough Music and Notes from an Exhibition. His fourteenth
novel, A Perfectly Good Man, won a Green Carnation award and was a
favourite recommendation among Guardian readers in the paper’s end
of year round-up. His latest novel, A Place Called Winter is a Radio 2 Book
Club selection. He is currently writing an original, gay-themed,
part-historical drama for BBC1 called Man in an Orange Shirt and
adapting Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence for BBC2.
17
11
WRITING
FOR CHILDREN
WITH MELVIN BURGESS & JENNY VALENTINE
GUEST: GILLIAN CROSS
Finding your inner child.
If you are serious about writing original fiction for young people aged
from six to sixteen and up, this is the course for you. The week will
include individual tutorials and workshops covering such topics as story,
character, and voice for children of all ages. Our aim is to help you solve
your writing problems, and to provide approaches and insights to inspire
the confidence necessary for great writing.
Melvin Burgess has written over twenty novels for young adults. He
won the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize in
1997 for his controversial novel Junk. His novel Doing It was adapted as a
television series called Life As We Know It.
www.melvinburgess.net
MONDAY
24TH JULY
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
29TH JULY
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
PRE-COURSE SUBMISSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Jenny Valentine studied English Literature at Goldsmiths College.
Before writing full time, she worked in a wholefood shop, as a teaching
assistant and a jewellery maker. Jenny won the Guardian Prize for
Children’s Fiction with her debut novel Finding Violet Park, which was
also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Her second novel, Broken Soup
was shortlisted for both the Waterstones Children’s Book of the Year
Award and Costa Children’s Book of the Year Award. In 2009 Jenny
was chosen as a World Book Day contributor and wrote the short story
Ten Stations. Other works include teenage novels, The Ant Colony, The
Double life of Cassiel Roadnight and a book series for younger readers, Iggy
and Me, short stories featuring the antics of two sisters. Her fifth novel,
Fire Colour One, has been shortlisted for 2016’s Carnegie Medal. Jenny
Valentine’s work has been translated into 17 languages.
Gillian Cross has written over fifty books. She has visited countries all
over the world to speak about her work which has been translated into
many other languages. Her novel Wolf won the Library Association’s
Carnegie Medal and The Great Elephant Chase won both the Smarties
Prize and the Whitbread Children’s Novel Award. More recently, After
Tomorrow, her novel about refugees, has won several prizes including the
Little Rebels Award. Her Demon Headmaster books have been the basis
of a play, a musical and a very successful BBC television series. A new
Demon Headmaster book is due out in 2017.
A Writing for Children Bursary is available for one place on this course,
see page 36 for details.
18
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
12
SHORT COURSE:
COMIC WRITING
WITH JON CANTER
& MARINA LEWYCKA
British culture is rich in humour: irony, satire, farce, wordplay, wit,
silliness, absurdity, teasing. The first rule of comedy is, there is no rule.
So, this course won’t tell you what’s funny and what’s not - that’s up
to you. Instead, you’ll discover the techniques writers use to fulfil the
comic potential of their characters and plots. No longer will you strive to
make every line funny, which soon becomes tiresome (and tired). We’ll
help you create characters and situations from which humour springs
naturally. You’ll learn how to do the hard work that makes your comedy
look easy.
THURSDAY
3RD AUGUST
••• TO •••
SUNDAY
6TH AUGUST
SINGLE ROOM £375
SHARED ROOM £325
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
PRE-COURSE SUBMISSIONS
Jon Canter studied law at Cambridge before becoming a scriptwriter,
novelist and playwright. His novels Seeds of Greatness, A Short Gentleman
and Worth led James Kidd in The Independent to call him ‘arguably the
finest comic novelist working in Britain today’. His TV credits include Not
The Nine O’Clock News, Posh Nosh and Live At The Apollo. Jon was a script
editor for Fry & Laurie and wrote stand-up comedy with Lenny Henry.
His radio credits include Believe It, which won Best Scripted Comedy at
the BBC Audio Awards in 2013, and Boswell’s Lives, which won the Prix
Europa in 2015 for Best Fiction Radio Series. He lives in Aldeburgh on the
Suffolk coast.
Marina Lewycka was born of Ukrainian parents in a German refugee
camp after World War II and now lives in Sheffield, Yorkshire. Her first
novel, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was published in 2005,
won the Saga Award for Wit, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize
for Comic Fiction and went on to sell a million copies in thirty-five
languages. She has since published Two Caravans in 2007, We Are All
Made of Glue in 2009 and Various Pets Alive and Dead in 2012. The Lubetkin
Legacy came out in 2016 and was also shortlisted for the Bollinger
Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.
19
13
POETRY
WITH PETER SANSOM & ANN SANSOM
GUEST: MICHAEL LONGLEY
An intensive but very enjoyable course of writing and reading with ‘the
best poetry teachers in the world’ (The Guardian). Taking classic and
contemporary poems as model and stimulus, we will create our own new
pieces throughout the week. Writers are invited to submit two poems
in advance to compare with work produced during the course, so as to
discuss writing practice.
MONDAY
14TH AUGUST
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
19TH AUGUST
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
PRE-COURSE SUBMISSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Peter Sansom’s collections include Selected Poems (Carcanet) and
Writing Poems (Bloodaxe). Peter has been writer in residence with M&S
and the Prudential, and taught at Leeds and Manchester Universities.
Together with Anne, they co-direct the ACE-initiative Writing School for
published poets and The Poetry Business.
www.poetrybusiness.co.uk
Ann Sansom’s publications include Romance and In Praise of Men &
Other People. Ann has worked as a writer with First Direct Bank and
has been Guest Poet at the Times Educational Supplement. She has
taught poetry at Sheffield Hallam, Manchester Metropolitan and Oxford
Universities.
Michael Longley s one of Ireland’s leading poets. His collections
include Gorse Fires (1991) which won the Whitbread Poetry Award and
The Weather in Japan (2000) which won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the
Hawthornden Prize. His Collected Poems was published in 2006 and A
Hundred Doors won the Irish Times Poetry Now Award. In 2002 he was
awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, one of the rarest British
honours for literary achievement. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature and a member of Aosdana. His latest collection The Stairwell
won the Griffin International Prize. His eleventh collection Angel Hill will
appear in June 2017. He and his wife, the critic Edna Longley, live and
work in Belfast.
20
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
The editor of my first novel said, “The best way
to end a scene and start a new one is to put a
full stop and begin a new paragraph. Film has
made us all much better at reading
abrupt “cuts”.”
SARA MAITLAND
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
21
CALENDAR OF COURSES 2017
CRIME
TH
TH
10 - 15
STUART MACBRIDE
LOUISE WELSH
YRSA SIGURðARDÓTTIR
FICTION
TH
ND
17 - 22
STARTING OUT
INTHPOETRY
TH
20 - 25
KATHRYN WILLIAMS
RODDY WOOMBLE
RACHEL SERMANNI
POETRY
WORKSHOP
TH
SUNDAY 30
JO BELL
SPRING
RETREAT
TH
TH
8 - 13
STARTING OUT
INTHFICTION
TH
15 - 20
ROSS RAISIN
CYNTHIA ROGERSON
JONATHAN BUCKLEY
Residential course:
Single Room: £595
Shared Room: £540
Short course:
Single £375/£390
Shared £325/£340
Retreat: £300
MIDSUMMER
RETREAT
TH
TH
19 - 24
JULY
SONGWRITING
TH
TH
JO SHAPCOTT
MAURA DOOLEY
JIM CARRUTH
JUNE
23 - 28
12 - 17
MAY
APRIL
JANUARY
RETREAT
RD
TH
FEBRUARY
JANUARY
LESLEY GLAISTER
ANDREW GREIG
RUTH THOMAS
MEMOIR
RD TH
3 -8
TIM CLARE
SALLY MAGNUSSON
RUPERT THOMSON
FICTION
TH
TH
10 - 15
TIFFANY MURRAY
KEVIN MACNEIL
PATRICK GALE
BIOGRAPHY
WORKSHOP
TH
SUNDAY 16
JENNIFER MORAG H
WRITING FO
CHILDREN
TH
TH
24 - 29
MELVIN BURGESS
JENNY VALENTINE
GILLIAN CROS
Day Workshop: £45
WWW.MONIACKM
3 -6
JON CANTER
MARINA LEWYCKA
POETRY
TH
TH
14 - 19
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
PETER SANSOM
ANN SANSOM
MICHAEL LONGLEY
@MONIACKMHOR
MONIACKMHOR
MONIACKMHOR
FICTION
ST
TH
[email protected]
21 - 26
FICTION
WORKSHOP
TH
JOANNE HARRIS
NAOMI ALDERMAN
JAMES RUNCIE
01463 741675
SUNDAY 15
JAMES ROBERTSON
28 - 2
SARA MAITLAND
MARK COCKER
GAVIN FRANCIS
N
Y
P
HENDERSON
OR
MHOR.ORG.UK
TUTORED
FICTION
RETREAT
TH TH
4 -9
NEEL MUKHERJEE
PAUL MURRAY
SARAH BANNAN
PLAYWRITING
TH
TH
SHORT
STORY
TH TH
30 - 4
MICHÈLE ROBERTS
ROMESH GUNESEKERA
DAVID CONSTANTINE
NOVEMBER
OCTOBER
NATURE
WRITING
TH ND
SEPTEMBER
AUGUST
COMIC
WRITING
RD TH
FICTION
TH
TH
16 - 19
LOUIS DE BERNIERES
JEM POSTER
WINTER
RETREAT
TH
TH
20 - 26
11 - 16
CHRIS THORPE
NICOLA MCCARTNEY
DAVID GREIG
TRAVEL
TH
RD
18 - 23
HORATIO CLARE
MICHELLE JANA CHAN
SARA WHEELER
PRE-COURSE SUBMISSION OF WORK
PERFORMANCE
POETRY
TH
TH
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
LEMN SISSAY
HOLLIE MCNISH
CAROLINE BIRD
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
25 - 30
WORKSHOP
SINGLE ROOMS ONLY
ABOUT THE CENTRE
THE CENTRE HAS
• Ten single rooms.
• Two twin rooms.
• Wifi in the communal areas (due to our
remote location we can’t guarantee a
strong connection).
• An IT room with two networked computers, a
laptop, and a printer & photocopier.
• A payphone.
• Bikes for student use.
• Yoga mats.
• Tutor books for sale.
• Maps and books on the local area.
• A branch of the Scottish Poetry Library
and a fiction library.
• A vegetable, herb and fruit garden with
fresh produce in season.
• A dry-stone storytelling circle with fire pit
for sharing tales under the stars.
WHAT TO BRING
In addition to anything you need for the week,
we suggest you bring:
• Writing materials: everyone’s habits are
different so bring what you need, laptop,
paper, pens etc.
• A USB memory stick for printing.• Boots or
trainers suitable for walking on
rough paths.
• Slippers.
• A waterproof jacket.
• Warm clothes.
• Cash for taxis, wine, tutors’ books or
sundries. There is no cash machine
nearby.
24
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
14
FICTION
WITH JOANNE HARRIS & NAOMI ALDERMAN
GUEST: JAMES RUNCIE
The bricks and mortar of fiction.
Writing convincing fiction is not unlike building a house. You need a
solid foundation, good craftsmanship and the finishing skills to make
it feel like yours. This course will outline the elements of fiction with
sessions on plot, characterisation, dialogue, creating atmosphere and a
session on how to edit once you have put it all together. You will come
away equipped with the skills to build your own.
MONDAY
21ST AUGUST
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
26TH AUGUST
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
PRE-COURSE SUBMISSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Joanne Harris (MBE) was born in 1964. She studied Modern and
Mediaeval Languages at Cambridge and was a teacher for fifteen
years. Whilst teaching she published three novels, including Chocolat
(1999), which was made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette
Binoche and Johnny Depp. Since then, she has written 15 more novels,
two collections of short stories and three cookbooks. Her books are
now published in over 50 countries and have won a number of British
and international awards. She is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s
College, Cambridge, has honorary doctorates in literature from the
universities of Sheffield and Huddersfield, and has been a judge for
numerous prizes. She works from a shed in her garden, plays bass in the
band she first joined when she was 16, is writing a novella for Dr Who
and lives with her husband and daughter in a little wood in Yorkshire.
Naomi Alderman is a novelist, broadcaster and videogame designer.
Her novels, which include Disobedience and The Liars’ Gospel, have been
translated into 10 languages and have won numerous awards. She is cocreator of the hit fitness game and audio adventure Zombies, Run!, which
has sold more than 3 million copies around the world. She broadcasts
regularly on BBC radio, and presents Science Stories on Radio 4. In 2013
she was selected by Granta for their once-a-decade list of Best of Young
British Novelists, and in 2012-13 she was mentored in the Rolex Arts
Initiative by Margaret Atwood. Penguin published her latest novel The
Power in October 2016.
James Runcie is a writer, director and literary curator. He is the author
of The Grantchester Mysteries, Visiting Professor at Bath Spa University,
and the Commissioning Editor for Arts on BBC Radio 4. He was born
in 1959, educated at Marlborough College, Cambridge University and
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He was a founder member of The Late
Show, and made documentary films for the BBC for fifteen years. He
then went freelance to make programmes for Channel 4 and ITV. He
was Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival from 2010-2013, and
Head of Literature at the Southbank Centre in London from 2013-2015.
James Runcie lives in Edinburgh and London.
25
15
NATURE
WRITING
WITH SARA MAITLAND & MARK COCKER
GUEST: GAVIN FRANCIS
Mark and Sara are both nature writers (though of rather different
kinds) who believe that seeing and first-hand knowledge are the first
essentials. They will offer outdoor activities to help you develop those
“forensic” skills as well as a series of workshops on memory, language
and narrative. The group will take every advantage of Moniack Mhor’s
setting to encounter as much of the rich local wildlife and landscapes as
possible
MONDAY
28TH AUGUST
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
2ND SEPTEMBER
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
PRE-COURSE SUBMISSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Sara Maitland is a novelist, non-fiction and short story writer. Born
in 1950, she grew up in Galloway and studied at Oxford University.
Her first novel, Daughters of Jerusalem, was published in 1978 and won
the Somerset Maugham Award. This has been followed by Three Times
Table, Home Truths and Brittle Joys, and more. Her non-fiction includes
A Big-Enough God: Artful Theology, Novel Thoughts: Religious Fiction in
Contemporary Culture, and Awesome God: Creation, Commitment and Joy.
She has also written Vesta Tilley and, with Peter Matthews, a book about
gardening – Gardens of Illusion and A Book of Silence. She was named in
the Guardian’s list of ‘the one hundred most important women public
intellectuals’.
www.saramaitland.com
Mark Cocker is an author, naturalist and environmental activist who
writes on nature and wildlife in a variety of national media including
The Guardian, New Statesman and Spectator. His ten books include
works of biography, history, literary criticism and memoir. His latest
are Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet (2014) and Birds and People
(Jonathan Cape), which have been shortlisted for six literary prizes.
Crow Country (2007) was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson and won
the New Angle Prize 2008. For the last 35 years his home has been in
Norfolk, where much of his free time is devoted to the restoration of a
small wooded fen called Blackwater Carr and all its thousands of wild
inhabitants.
Gavin Francis is the author of True North, Empire Antarctica (which
was Scottish Book of the Year 2013) and Adventures in Human Being
(which won the Saltire Non-Fiction Prize 2015). He works as a general
practitioner, and is a regular contributor to the Guardian and the
London Review of Books.
26
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
16
TUTORED
FICTION RETREAT
WITH PAUL MURRAY & NEEL MUKHERJEE
GUEST: SARAH BANNAN
This course will suit writers with a work in progress. If you need an
intensive period to focus on something which is nearing completion,
this is your chance. Paul and Neel will be on hand to offer constructive
advice in one-to-one tutorials on finishing and those final tweaks to plot
and character to help make your work the best it can be.
MONDAY
4 SEPTEMBER
TH
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
9TH SEPTEMBER
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Paul Murray has written three novels, The Mark and The Void, An
Evening of Long Goodbyes and Skippy Dies. His stories have appeared in
Granta, The Paris Review, the New York Times and elsewhere.
Neel Mukherjee’s award winning debut novel, A Life Apart, was
published in 2010. His second novel, The Lives of Others, was shortlisted
for the Man Booker Prize and the Costa Best Novel Award, and won the
Encore Prize for best second novel.
www.neelmukherjee.com
Sarah Bannan was born in 1978 in upstate New York. She graduated
from Georgetown University in 2000 and then moved to Ireland, where
she has lived ever since. She is the Head of Literature at the Irish Arts
Council and lives in Dublin with her husband and daughter. Weightless
is her first novel.
27
17
MONDAY
11 SEPTEMBER
PLAYWRITING
SATURDAY
16TH SEPTEMBER
WITH CHRIS THORPE & NICOLA MCCARTNEY
GUEST: DAVID GREIG
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
Make it, then break it. Understanding form, then asking if it works for
you.
Plays come in many different shapes, but to deviate from the norm,
you have to understand what you’re deviating from. The week will
provide a grounding in classical dramatic structure, and then encourage
participants to test their own ideas against it. The questions at the heart
of your work might be best served by a conventional play, or a text that
feels very different. This week is about investigating what makes a play,
why we write them, and which elements to use in your own work.
TH
••• TO •••
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
PRE-COURSE SUBMISSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Chris Thorpe was a founder member of Unlimited Theatre as well
as an Artistic Associate of live art/theatre company Third Angel.
He has worked with, among others, Forest Fringe, Slung Low, Chris
Goode, RashDash, Belarus Free Theatre and Portuguese experimental
company mala voadora. He also plays guitar in Lucy Ellinson’s
political noise project #TORYCORE and works with the National Student
Drama Festival. His plays include There Has Possibly Been an Incident,
Confirmation, both of which have toured internationally. He has also
collaborated with Hannah Jane Walker to make The Oh Fuck Moment and
I Wish I Was Lonely. Chris is the Arvon mentor for playwriting, 2016/17.
Nicola McCartney, originally from Belfast, is an award-winning writer
and director, based in Scotland. A graduate of Glasgow University, she
was Artistic Director of Glasgow-based new writing theatre company,
lookOUT from 1992 to 2002. Her plays include: Heritage, Lifeboat, and
Easy. Nicola has worked as a dramaturge for a range of companies
including Vanishing Point and the Edinburgh International Festival
2005. She has had a range of residencies both academic and community
based and is a former Associate Playwright of the new Playwrights Studio
Scotland. She was a recipient of a Creative Scotland Award 2003 to work
on her first novel entitled, Ice Angel, and also works in radio, TV and
film. She designed and leads the Masters in Playwriting at University of
Edinburgh.
David Greig is the Lyceum’s Artistic Director as well as an acclaimed
and award-winning playwright. His plays have been performed across
the UK, at the Royal Court, National, the RSC, and the Traverse Theatre
in Scotland, and have been produced and toured around the world. Plays
include Glasgow Girls, and The Lorax, which has just been on at the Old
Vic, The Events, The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, Dunsinane, and the
book for Charlie and The Chocolate Factory the musical. David writes for
screen and radio too and is currently under commission from Hillbilly
Films and the BBC.
28
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
18
MONDAY
18 SEPTEMBER
TRAVEL
SATURDAY
23 SEPTEMBER
WITH HORATIO CLARE & MICHELLE JANA CHAN
GUEST: SARA WHEELER
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
Beginning with classic techniques and examples of the most evocative
travel writing, this course will bring participants bang up to date with
the latest developments in the genre and explore ways and means of
working as a travel writer now. Taught by an award-winning author and
an editor at Conde Nast Traveller, the course is aimed at participants of
all levels.
TH
••• TO •••
RD
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Horatio Clare’s first book, Running for the Hills, an acclaimed account
of a Welsh childhood, won a Somerset Maugham Award, was longlisted
for the Guardian First Book Award and saw Horatio shortlisted for the
Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. His subsequent books include
Truant, A Single Swallow (shortlisted for the Dolman Travel Book of the
Year), The Prince’s Pen and the best-selling travelogue, Down to the Sea
in Ships (winner of the Dolman Travel Book of the Year). His essays and
reviews appear regularly in the national press and on BBC radio.
Horatio’s first book for children, Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot, was awarded
the Branford Boase Award 2016.
Michelle Jana Chan is Contributing Editor at Conde Nast Traveller
and the BBC’s Global Guide on The Travel Show. She is also the
Telegraph Travel’s Asia Expert and their Action Packed columnist. Her
writing includes stories about the origins of man around Kenya’s Lake
Turkana, competing in the Peking to Paris vintage car rally, summiting
Mont Blanc, and sailing across the Great Australian Bight on the HMB
Endeavour. Michelle cut her teeth as a reporter for Newsweek magazine
in New York and Beijing, followed by long nights as a news producer for
CNN International.
www.michellejanachan.com @michellejchan
Sara Wheeler is a prize-winning non-fiction writer. Her books include
the international bestseller Terra Incognita, which tells the story of a
seven-month journey in Antarctica. The Daily Telegraph reviewer wrote
of it, ‘I do not think there will ever be a better book written about the
Antarctic.’ Other books include The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic
Circle (winner of the Banff Adventure Travel Prize), and Access All Areas:
Selected Writings, 1990-2010. Sara is a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature, a Contributing Editor of The Literary Review and a Trustee of
The London Library. She contributes to a wide range of publications in
the UK and US and broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio.
A Travel Writing Bursary is available for one place on this course, see
page 36 for details.
29
19
PERFORMANCE
POETRY
MONDAY
25 SEPTEMBER
TH
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
30TH SEPTEMBER
WITH LEMN SISSAY & HOLLIE MCNISH
GUEST: CAROLINE BIRD
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
The stage can be a frightening place. It needn’t be. The nature of
expression through the poems which you have carefully written are
what this course is all about. We will show you how to give the words the
respect they deserve by exalting them through your voice and physical
presence. You will experience the true nature of performance through a
poem. Through a series of workshops, tutorials and much more besides,
two of Britain’s finest poets of the page and the stage offer a great week.
Inhibitions will disappear and you will leave with invaluable lessons in
how to improve your stage presence and your words. It’s never been a
better time for poetry on stage and it’s never been a better time for this
course. Seasoned performers are welcome too. This course will enhance
their practice no end.
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Lemn Sissay (MBE) is the author of several books of poetry alongside
articles, records, public art, and plays. He was an official poet for the
London Olympics. His Landmark Poems are installed throughout
Manchester and London, in venues such as The Royal Festival Hall and
The Olympic Park. Sissay is associate artist at Southbank Centre, patron
of The Letterbox Club and The Reader Organisation, and inaugural
trustee of World Book Night.
Hollie McNish is a published UK poet based between London,
Cambridge and Glasgow. She has two poetry collections – Cherry Pie and
Papers – and an album, Versus, which made her the first poet to record at
Abbey Road Studios, London. In February 2016, Blackfriars published her
memoir of poetry and parenthood, Nobody Told Me. Taken from Hollie’s
journals while pregnant and in the early years of raising her daughter,
through the passages and poems she wrote, she explores raising a child
in modern Britain, of trying to become a parent in modern Britain,
of sex, commercialism, feeding, gender and of finding secret places to
scream once in a while. The Scotsman declared “The world needs this
book. It should be required reading.” It has been reprinted four times
already. In 2017, Picador will publish her third poetry collection, as yet
untitled.
Caroline Bird is an award-winning poet, with four collections
published by Carcanet. Her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes
was published when she was only 15. Her second collection, Trouble
Came to the Turnip, was published in September 2006 to critical acclaim.
Watering Can (2009) achieved a ‘Poetry Book Society Recommendation’
and her fourth collection, The Hat-Stand Union, (2013) was described
by Simon Armitage as ‘spring-loaded, funny, sad and deadly.’ Winner
of multiple awards, she was one of the five official poets at London
Olympics 2012 and has written a number of plays. In 2013, Caroline
was short-listed for Most Promising New Playwright at the Off-West-End
Awards. She is currently working on her fifth collection of poetry.
30
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
20
MONDAY
30TH OCTOBER
SHORT STORY
SATURDAY
4TH NOVEMBER
WITH MICHÈLE ROBERTS & ROMESH GUNESEKERA
GUEST: DAVID CONSTANTINE
SINGLE ROOM £595
SHARED ROOM £540
This course for fiction writers will concentrate on how to re-draft short
stories. Re-drafting is a crucial art, indispensably part of writing well.
It involves recognising and building on your strengths as a writer, and
takes time and practice. There will be separate morning workshops
by each of the tutors. One series will focus on group feedback and
suggestions on improving your stories, and the other on the challenges
of short fiction including workshop exercises on revising and editing. You
will also have individual sessions with each tutor. Please bring a story or
stories you want to work on but be prepared to be inspired to write, and
revise, something new as well.
••• TO •••
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
PRE-COURSE SUBMISSIONS
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
Michèle Roberts is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels,
including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House which won the
WHSmith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her
memoir Paper Houses was BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in June 2007.
She has also published poetry and short stories, most recently collected
in Mud: Stories of Sex and Love (2010). Half-English and half-French,
Michèle Roberts lives in London and in the Mayenne, France. She is
Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
Romesh Gunesekera was born in 1954 in Sri Lanka. He now lives in
London. His first novel, Reef, was published in 1994 and was short-listed
as a finalist for the Booker Prize, as well as for the Guardian Fiction
Prize. In 1992 Granta published his first collection of stories, Monkfish
Moon, which was shortlisted for several prizes and named a New York
Times Notable Book for 1993. In 1998, he received the inaugural BBC
Asia Award for Achievement in Writing & Literature for his novel The
Sandglass. He has also won, among others, the Premio Mondello Five
Continents and Yorkshire Post Best First Work Award in Britain. His
novels include Heaven’s Edge, The Prisoner of Paradise, Noontide Toll, and
Match. In 2008, a collection of his Madeira stories were published in a
bilingual edition. Romesh Gunesekera is an elected Fellow of the Royal
Society of Literature, and has also received a National Honour in Sri
Lanka.
David Constantine, born 1944 in Salford, Lancs, was for thirty years a
university teacher of German language and literature. He has published
a dozen volumes of poetry (most recently – 2014 – Elder); two novels,
Davies (1985), The Life-Writer (2015); and five collections of short stories.
He is an editor and translator of Hölderlin, Goethe, Kleist and Brecht.
For his stories he won the BBC National and the Frank O’ Connor
International Awards (2010, 2013). The film ‘45 Years’ was based on
his story In Another Country. With Helen Constantine he edited Modern
Poetry in Translation, 2003-12
31
21
SHORT COURSE:
FICTION
WITH LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES & JEM POSTER
GUEST: THE BOOKSHOP BAND
Writing character.
THURSDAY
16 NOVEMBER
TH
••• TO •••
SUNDAY
19TH NOVEMBER
SINGLE ROOM £390
SHARED ROOM £340
WORKSHOPS
ONE-TO-ONE SESSIONS
Although writers tend to work holistically, it can be helpful to isolate
and examine some of the elements of our writing. In this course,
novelists Louis de Bernières and Jem Poster will foreground the writing
of character, emphasising the importance of such matters as dialogue
and silence, action and inaction as means of revealing the inward
workings of our characters’ minds. By focusing on this particular area
of the writing process, as well as on the general need for precision and
relevance, we shall arrive at a fuller understanding of the art and craft of
fiction-writing.
On Sunday, at midday, there will be an afternoon concert with The
Bookshop Band
Louis de Bernières, who lives in Norfolk, published his first novel in
1990 and was selected by Granta magazine as one of the twenty Best
of Young British Novelists in 1993. He is internationally recognized
for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which won the Commonwealth Writers’
Prize for Best Novel in 1994. His other novels include the acclaimed
Birds Without Wings (2004) and A Partisan’s Daughter (2008), which was
shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award. A collection of short stories,
Notwithstanding: Stories from an English Village, was published in 2009,
followed by his first collection of poetry, Imagining Alexandria: Poems in
Memory of Constantinos Cavafis, in 2013. His major new novel The Dust
That Falls From Dreams was published in 2015 and became a Sunday
Times bestseller. As well as writing, he plays the flute, mandolin and
guitar.
Jem Poster is the author of two novels, Courting Shadows and Rifling
Paradise, as well as a collection of poetry, Brought to Light; he is also the
editor of volume III of the projected six-volume Oxford University Press
Edward Thomas: Prose Writings (forthcoming, 2017). From 2003 to 2012
he was Professor of Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University, and
is now Emeritus Professor. He has been Chair of the editorial board of
New Welsh Review, and is currently Director of Academic Programmes
for the Oxford Literary Festival and programme advisor to Cambridge
University’s MSt in Creative Writing.
The Bookshop Band are Ben Please and Beth Porter, who write songs
inspired by books and play them in bookshops. Their performances are
inextricably linked to the books themselves, as the band take it in turns
to describe where the inspiration for each song came from.
32
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
22
WINTER
RETREAT
Tis the season to be writing! Come on our Winter Retreat and cosy up
next to a burning stove while you work. Be inspired by the snow-veiled
landscapes and starry nights.
MONDAY
20 NOVEMBER
TH
••• TO •••
SATURDAY
25TH NOVEMBER
SINGLE ROOM £300
EN-SUITE ROOM £350
SINGLE ROOMS ONLY
OPTIONAL GUIDED WALK
“Procrastinate later.”
ROMESH GUNESEKERA
33
DAY WORKSHOPS & EVENTS
POETRY DAY WORKSHOP
23
WITH JO BELL
SUNDAY 30TH APRIL, 10AM - 4PM
DAY WORKSHOP
£45
Jo Bell brings her dynamic teaching style to Moniack Mhor with a day
based on her award-winning global workshop group, the 52 project.
Using plentiful exercises, examples of others’ poetry and with lots of time
for discussion, this event will concentrate on universal techniques for
improving your work and on generating lots of new poems, rather than on
reading around as we go. A friendly, instructive and productive day.
Jo Bell is described by Carol Ann Duffy as ‘one of the most exciting
poets now writing.’ Her awards include the Charles Causley Prize and the
Manchester Cathedral Prize. Formerly director of National Poetry Day
and the UK’s first Canal Laureate, she works across the UK. In her writing
she aims for an absolutely unsentimental tenderness, and her teaching
is marked by a ‘robust kindness’. Her global workshop project 52 won a
Saboteur Award in 2015.
FICTION DAY:
THE ART OF OMISSION
WITH JAMES ROBERTSON
SUNDAY 15TH OCTOBER, 10AM - 4PM
24
DAY WORKSHOP
£45
‘There is but one art – to omit!’ So wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, adding,
‘O if I knew how to omit, I would ask no other knowledge.’ In fiction,
we are always being reminded that ‘less is more’, but what does this
mean? How do you decide what to leave out, and what is essential? With
work ranging from one-page stories to full-length novels in a variety of
genres, James Robertson is an experienced guide when it comes to editing,
redrafting, focusing and distilling your fiction.
James Robertson is the author of four short story collections, including Republics of the Mind and 365: Stories,
and six novels, including Joseph Knight, The Testament of Gideon Mack, And the Land Lay Still and To Be Continued.
He has also worked as a translator, editor and abridger for radio.
34
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
WRITING A BIOGRAPHY
WORKSHOP
WITH JENNIFER MORAG HENDERSON
SUNDAY 16TH JULY, 10AM - 4PM
25
DAY WORKSHOP
£45
Jennifer will draw on her experience of writing the critically acclaimed biography Josephine Tey: A Life as well as
her work on family history. Topics will include choice of subject and sensitivity in handling material; research
methods and research materials, especially the use of libraries, archives and the internet, as well as looking at
more unusual sources. Various published biographies will be considered together with the development of the
genre.
Jennifer Morag Henderson has had articles, short stories and poems published in magazines and anthologies,
including Riptide (Two Ravens Press), Northwords Now, The Dalhousie Review, Gutter, by the BBC and others. As a
playwright her work has been performed for the National Theatre of Scotland’s Five Minute Theatre project, and
elsewhere. She holds an MA in English Language and Sociology from the University of Glasgow, and a Graduate
degree from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada.
The above workshop is a fringe event to the 2017 Josephine Tey Conference, run by our partners, UHI.
JOSEPHINE TEY CONFERENCE
INVERNESS COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF THE HIGHLANDS & ISLANDS
THURSDAY 13TH - MONDAY 17TH JULY 2017
Josephine Tey was the pen-name of Elizabeth MacKintosh (1896-1952).
Born in Inverness, MacKintosh was best known as ‘Josephine Tey’, and also
as novelist and playwright ‘Gordon Daviot’. Her plays were performed in
the West End in London and on Broadway, and she wrote for Hollywood.
Her novels include The Franchise Affair, Brat Farrar and The Daughter of Time
– once voted the best crime novel of all time.
As a critically-acclaimed and commercially-successful Scottish writer of the
twentieth-century, Elizabeth MacKintosh’s output has not previously been
given the attention it deserves. Research presented at the event will look at
her place in the Scottish literary canon, her influence on detective fiction,
and her situation as a Highland author. Open to both academics and the
wider public, the conference will be supported by a number of community
events, including the above workshop at Moniack Mhor.
The three-day conference will be open to academics and the wider public,
and will be supported by a number of community events. For more
information, contact [email protected], or visit
www.josephinetey.wordpress.com
35
AWARDS
EMERGING WRITER AWARD
THE BRIDGE AWARDS
The Bridge Awards is a philanthropic
venture that has helped to fund theatre
and visual arts projects. Since 2015,
the Bridge Awards have supported one
emerging writer annually at Moniack
Mhor. The award will run again in 2017
with a tailor-made prize up to the value
of £2000 for the successful writer.
The Bridge Awards applications open in January.
TRAVEL WRITING BURSARY
This award is for one place on the Travel Writing Course (see
page 29). The deadline for this award will be announced via our
newsletter and on our website. This award is kindly donated by
our patron, Mairi Hedderwick.
WRITING FOR CHILDREN BURSARY
This award is for one place on the Writing for Children Course
(see page 18). The winner will also have a critique session with
literary agents Fraser Ross Associates. This award is kindly
donated by our patron, Mairi Hedderwick.
‘It’s hard to overstate how
much difference getting
this kind of support and
encouragement makes
when you’re writing your
first novel: it has kept me
motivated and enthused!
Janice Galloway is the perfect
mentor - encouraging and
enthusiastic, but she also
pushes me to examine my
writing with a critical eye
and to make it the best it can
be. Having time at Moniack
Mhor has been wonderful too
- it’s the perfect environment
for getting lots of thinking
and writing done without
distractions (apart from the
beauty of the view!). My
novel is really taking shape
now and I’m so grateful to
everyone at the Bridge Award
and Moniack Mhor, and to
Janice Galloway, for all their
support.’
VICKY MACKENZIE,
2015 Emerging Writer Award
Winner
ULLAPOOL BOOK FESTIVAL
Winners from the 2015 awards at Moniack Mhor were invited to
read at Ullapool Book Festival in Spring. This is an opportunity
that will be offered again in 2017.
THE JESSIE KESSON FELLOWSHIP
A published writer spends March at the centre, developing their
own work and raising awareness about Jessie Kesson in the
community and local schools. Application details available on
our website.
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
36
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
“Show, don’t tell.”
MICHELLE JANA CHAN
HOW TO BOOK
HOW TO BOOK
GRANTS
Bookings can be made:
Moniack Mhor offers grants to those who may
find course fees a barrier to attending a course.
Grants, which cover a part of the course fee,
are available to those based in the UK, for more
information and to apply, visit:
www.moniackmhor.org.uk/grants
or contact us to discuss the details. We normally
make a decision within a week.
• Online at www.moniackmhor.org.uk
• By phone 01463 741 675
• By email [email protected]
Please contact us by phone or email if you have
any questions about the courses, the centre or
anything else.
PAYMENT
Courses can be paid for in full, or a deposit
of £150 is required on Monday to Saturday
courses, and of £75 for short courses. This can
be paid when booking online, or by cheque
(payable to Moniack Mhor Ltd), credit card or
bank transfer. The balance of the full course
fee is due six weeks prior to the course starting.
If we do not receive the balance in time, your
booking may be treated as a cancellation and
offered to another writer.
Courses can be paid for in instalments, provided
the full balance is paid six weeks prior to the
course beginning. If this is of interest to you,
please phone or email the centre to discuss
payment plans.
CANCELLATIONS
For cancellations made up to six weeks before
the course takes place, your deposit will be
returned less a £50 admin charge. We will do
our best to find someone else to take your place
and, if we succeed, your full course fee, less
the £50 admin charge, will be returned. If we
cannot re-fill your place, we will retain the full
fee. Sometimes we are able to offer a transfer to
another course. For full terms and conditions,
see www.moniackmhor.org.uk/terms-andconditions/
38
GIFT VOUCHERS
If you would like to buy a special gift for a
friend, we can provide a gift voucher for any
amount.
DIETARY REQUIREMENTS
We can cater for most dietary requirements and
allergies and always provide vegetarian options.
Please let us know your specific requirements
when booking your course.
ACCESS
The kitchen, two bedrooms, and communal
spaces, as well as a wheelchair accessible wet
room are situated downstairs. There is a hearing
loop in the main house, and guide dogs are
welcome, just let us know. We can also provide
mobility equipment, and course materials in
braille if needed.
If you would like to come with a carer or
support worker, please contact the centre to
discuss accommodation options.
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
GETTING HERE
Moniack Mhor is 14 miles from Inverness,
and within easy reach of the train station, bus
station and airport. We will arrange taxis for
you from these places. If you choose to drive
there are directions on our website.
UNDER 18s
Those aged 16 to 18 are welcome to book a
single room on open courses. We require a letter
of consent from a parent or guardian.
We also run a programme of writing events and
courses for writers aged up to 25, based in the
Highlands. See page 41 for details.
JOIN THE MAILING LIST
To receive a brochure in the post for next year,
or sign up to our monthly email newsletter, go
to www.moniackmhor.org.uk/sign-up or email
us on [email protected]
KEEP IN TOUCH
Facebook: Moniack Mhor
Twitter: @moniackmhor
Instagram: @moniackmhor
39
PARTNERSHIPS
Throughout the rest of the year, Moniack Mhor
runs a number of partnerships with universities,
writing groups and other literary organisations,
in addition to the youth programme. In 2017,
we will be welcoming the Society of Authors,
Manchester Metropolitan University, the
Scottish Book Trust, Pushkin Prizewinners, Fèis
Rois and the Inverness based Highland Literary
Salon, among many others. Partnership courses
often follow a similar structure to our open
courses, though this can be tailored to suit the
needs of the group. We welcome the opportunity
to support those in need of time and space to
write in a comfortable environment from groups
based locally, nationally and internationally.
Please get in touch with Sarah Kinghorn
([email protected]) or Rachel
Humphries ([email protected]) if
you are interested in bringing a partnership to
Moniack Mhor.
“The more I read and the more I do,
the more I write. And if I have nothing
to write about, just wait. I don’t really
believe in writer’s block - it just makes
a blank space seem more stressful than
it needs be.”
HOLLIE MCNISH
40
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
YOUTH PROGRAMME
“Writing is rocket fuel. It makes you
courageous.”
A L KENNEDY
Moniack Mhor runs a powerful programme of creative writing activity for young people living
in the Highlands and beyond. Our outreach work takes us into schools, libraries and community
centres, delivering high quality workshops and one-to-one mentoring on young people’s doorsteps.
We also target our efforts, making sure we reach those who don’t usually get easy access or the
support to take part in what are sometimes termed educational-extras. Much of our delivery is in
partnership, working with other creative learning bodies to provide activities that cross art form
and education boundaries, providing rich, multi-disciplinary experiences.
At the centre, we run around four residential courses for young writers each year. As on our core
programme, established writers provide inspirational workshops and one-to-one tutorials to fire
young peoples’ imaginations and hone their literary tools. As well as benefiting from the creative
writing aspects of the course, young people make new friends, work together, cook together and get
a taste of independent living, gaining great writing skills for self-expression and much more.
At present, thanks to funding from Creative Scotland, we are able to offer all our activities to young
people for free.
41
LITERARY COLLECTIVE
Moniack Mhor seeks to foster a diverse and
mutually supportive literary culture by
nurturing writing skills and building the
confidence to create new work. We make
opportunities for people of all ages and from all
walks of life to participate in creative writing,
by providing space, inspiration and tuition from
leading writers.
In 2014 we launched an independent
programme of courses, awards and retreats. We
rely on a combination of grants, course fees and
donations to support our ongoing work.
If you would like to help, becoming a member
of Moniack Mhor’s Literary Collective is easy.
There are various levels of membership and
every donation goes towards:
• Our bursary scheme – making our courses
more accessible.
• Making vital improvements at the centre, to
the benefit of every writer who visits.
• Innovative projects for young people and
adults in Scotland.
As well as supporting our work, you will receive
exclusive benefits such as priority booking.
Membership is available on three different
levels.
GOLD - £100 PER ANNUM
Priority booking
Literary Collective Newsletter
10% discount on all courses
Moniack Mhor embossed leather notebook
Invite to events
SILVER - £50 PER ANNUM
Priority booking
Literary Collective Newsletter
5% discount on all courses
BRONZE - £20 PER ANNUM
Priority booking
Literary Collective Newsletter
If you would be interested in sponsoring a
particular project or development at Moniack
Mhor, please contact the Centre Director.
Your support is greatly appreciated.
42
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK
WHO WE ARE
RACHEL HUMPHRIES
HEATHER CLYNE
Centre Director & Programmer
Administrator
In the seven years Rachel has been Director
there have been many improvements to the
centre, including gaining regular funding
from Creative Scotland, the garden project,
the construction of the Straw Bale studio and the move
to independence. Outside work, Rachel can be found
herding goats on her croft and creating pottery goods.
A graduate in Scottish Gaelic from Sabhal
Mòr Ostaig on Isle of Skye, Heather has a
passion for Gaelic placenames and poetry.
When not answering the emails and
clearing the snow off the car park at Moniack Mhor,
she is tending her ever increasing flock of hens, each
named after a Scottish fiddle player.
SARAH KINGHORN
EILIDH SMITH
House Manager
Sarah makes sure that every person that
visits the centre is well fed and comfortable.
She makes sure indoor and outdoor
maintenance is taken care of, works
towards making our operations more sustainable and
tends to our partnership courses. In her spare time, she
can be found building a straw bale house which will
soon be her family home.
MARK DONALD PHIMISTER
Centre Host
Mark joined our team in 2014 as an intern,
and now looks after the hospitality side
of our courses. He works closely with the
tutors and students to ensure they are well
cared for, and also runs our bookshop and Literary
Collective. He has recently begun an online MFA in
Creative Writing through Manchester Metropolitan
University.
Youth Programme Coordinator
Eilidh has recently joined the team at
Moniack Mhor, helping to deliver our
programme of activity for young writers.
Her career has lead her from journalism,
to education, through the environmental sector to the
arts. Living in Strathpeffer she reckons she has one of
the best commutes in the UK, possibly the world.
LAURA DONALD
Centre Assistant
Laura helps out Mark and Sarah, and can
usually be found trying to keep the fires
going. She also does some social media and
website work for the Youth Programme. She
writes whenever she can, mostly literary fiction with
fantasy twists. When not working she’s usually out
walking in the woods with her two dogs.
RICHMOND CLEMENTS
RUTH TAUBER
Marketing Manager & Programmer
With a degree in Scottish Literature and a
broad background in the arts, Ruth joined
Moniack Mhor in 2014. Working remotely
from Sweden, she comes back to Scotland
often for a fix of Highland scenery, which also inspires
her own writing
Communications Coordinator
(Maternity Cover)
Richmond is delighted to be working at
Moniack Mhor, which he thinks is, the
most magical place on Earth. In his spare
time (ha!) he writes and edits comics and
graphic novels and watches too many movies.
Relief Centre Assistants:
CYNTHIA ROGERSON, LYNDY BATTY & KELSEY MORSE
Board of Management
Nicky Guthrie – Chair, Kit Fraser – Treasurer, John Glenday – Secretary, Lorraine Mann – Vice Chair,
Anne Macleod, Janet Adams, Stewart Lackie, Joe Gibbs, Caroline Deacon, Cynthia Rogerson.
43
“A breathtaking setting.”
JOANNE HARRIS
We are grateful to Creative Scotland for their continued support
WWW.MONIACKMHOR.ORG.UK | 01463 741675 | [email protected]
@moniackmhor
Moniack Mhor
@moniackmhor
MONIACK MHOR, TEAVARRAN, KILTARLITY, INVERNESS-SHIRE, SCOTLAND, IV4 7HT
Moniack Mhor is a Registered Charity SC 030292