Ways With Words

Creative Flow at Ways With Words 2014

Do read Bridget Holding’s guest blog. She is giving a talk in the Barn, 'Passion for the Wild' on Friday 11 July at 10am. This will be followed by her Wild Words Workshop at 11.30am on the same day. (Nos. 84 and FE 5 in the festival programme to find out more.) Two events not to miss.

 

Creative Flow at ‘Ways With Words’ 2014

Guest blog by Bridget Holding of ‘Wild Words’

The Ways With Words festival is just around the corner now.  It’s an extraordinary meeting place and melting pot of ideas, concepts, images, dreams and visions. They all find their expression in the virtual black ink scratches, that nowadays, we make mostly via our computer keyboards.

Often when I teach creative writing I talk about the importance of writers having contact with the full breadth of their emotional life, in order to imbue the words on the page with those qualities. Muriel Rukeyser said that one writes in order to feel, but it’s also true, I believe, that one reads in order to feel. There’s a direct line of experiencing that runs like a flowing river from a writer into their characters, and then into the reader. This is the process of creative expression. This is what ‘Ways With Words’ is all about.

I run ‘Wild Words’ courses - wildwords.org - ‘a pioneering approach to working in a psychological, body-based, and nature-based way with writers’. I’m going to be presenting my work at ‘Ways With Words’, and leading a workshop. We’ll be going outside to explore the ideas of creative block and creative flow by using the metaphor of the river. We’re lucky enough to have stunning natural environment to work with at Dartington, complete with flowing water (we hope!) And if it’s dried up, well, there’s a metaphor in that too!

The ‘Ways With Words’ festival embraces writers and readers of poetry and prose, fact and fiction. It’s a celebration of the human ability to tell narratives. This ability, I believe, is not just a nice addition to our lives, it is fundamental to our health and happiness. Maya Angelou had it right when she said that there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. But equally, there is no greater joy than in the act of liberating a story from within. We tell stories to process emotion, to gain perspective, to find meaning, to inform and to entertain. For me, the form of the writing is not so important, I am just always delighted to see how we are naturally craftspeople of the highest order when it comes to words. 

Don’t get me wrong, certainly writing is a craft to be practiced. However, we do not start from nowhere. Have you ever heard a drunk person in a pub tell a riveting story, or found that an anecdote from your day just slipped of the tongue, fully-formed? Human beings are metaphorical creatures, born storytellers.

So, if you’re coming to Ways With Words to watch writers on stage, by all means revere their talents, but also remember you own. And equally important, remember that all the writers and speakers are human too. We’re all beavering away in our rooms right now to prepare for our audience. We’re all a little nervous about how we will be received. For every writer, amateur or professional, it’s the same. We face the scary blank first page with every new commission, and with the opening lines of every talk. Then we have to just trust that the stories flow… See you there!

 

 

Keeping Calm at Ways With Words

Many people think running a literature festival must be hell. Stephen and myself are often told, "You look so calm". People are surprised that we aren't weeping, tearing our hair out or have a haunted and distracted appearance. I'm amazed they think we would be. Why would we want to organise Ways With Words if we didn't enjoy it? Why would anyone want to come to a festival if the people most involved look as if it was a misery for them?

I have been saying for years: Keep Calm and Carry On. It's a bit irritating to see it plastered over loads of mugs and tea towels now but the message is still apposite for us and the staff. We knew that it wouldn't be hard to relax and be very calm for the Ways With Words festival in Southwold. Southwold is a place where life's troubles and trivia disappear. Southwold is synonymous with calmness. When we see the town’s sign we sigh loudly with pleasure. A festival in Southwold adds to the enjoyment of a visit here. There is a positive and joyful atmosphere as crowds come and go to the various events. Sometimes people look thoughtful, sometimes triumphant, sometimes angry - but they are always pleased to be there.

If the ideas are coming too fast and furious to assimilate it's always possible to go to the edge of the sea, throw a few pebbles into the waves and forget the BBC, China, the holocaust, the First World War or Downton Abbey. Melvyn Bragg was seen walking along the sea's edge when he spoke at the festival. You will see me there - if not before or during the festival, definitely afterwards. You can also turn from the concerns of the world to buy fish (for sale from the fishermen’s huts by the harbour). If you buy some to take home it will be packed in ice so that it arrives at your destination as fresh as when it left the sea – almost.

The next Ways With Words in Southwold will take place 7-11 November 2013. Many have already booked rooms at The Swan or The Crown for a festival package next November. Besides B&B and evening meal in these lovely hotels package people are guaranteed a seat in all events, even the most popular. ( And there are always a lot of popular ones. This year Jeremy Vine, Will Gompertz, Paul Mason, Pat Barker, Richard Mabey, Ronald Blythe, Simon Hoggart – and loads more sold out within hours of the tickets going on sale.)
Phone Bryony on 01803 867373 to find out about availability of rooms for 2013.

Town Mice or Country Mice?

Ways With Words: Festivals of the City or the Countryside?

We drank coffee on Bermondsey Street and discussed city v. country life. Around us were Londoners leading their ordinary lives: emailing, phoning, reading and talking. Very appealing. So are we really city people? What would we miss about country living if we moved to the city?

We decided we like having a spacious farmhouse in Devon with room for crowds to come and stay; a large dining room for long, slow meals; a big kitchen with an open fire where I can bake and make; vegetable growing; a garden to potter around; leaves to gather; log piles to stack; compost heaps to maintain; and mostly lamp light and big fires for quiet evenings reading. In short we like to do nothing much.
 
On the other hand we do enjoy having lots to do in London and pack our days with activity: visiting galleries; exploring shops and streets; finding restaurants, parks; listening to music in cathedrals and watching the world from café terraces.

Embarrassingly we decided we need regular doses of both city and country, which is greedy, not very green and politically unsound.

We have always seen Ways With Words as the festivals of quiet, country places. We feel that going to beautiful, peaceful settings is part of the festival experience.

So at present visitors can choose to have festival life on the banks of Derwentwater in the Lake District and when not in Theatre by the Lake listening to Alastair Darling or Claire Tomalin can marvel at the mountains (or even climb them) and stroll amongst the daffodils. Words by the Water lasts for 10 days in March and thousands came to the Lake District just a month ago. 

In July many book and idea enthusiasts will come to Ways With Words at Dartington Hall in Devon. They will be there partly to hear Michael Palin, Jung Chang, Tariq Ali, P.D.James, Hilary Mantel, Joan Bakewell, Julian Clary, Michael Holroyd – and about 100 other speakers, but they will also be there for the tranquil gardens of Dartington Hall; the walks by the River Dart and the soft hills of Devon.

November in Southwold is quite different: the waves crash on the shingle; the inland lighthouse flashes in the centre of the town; the colourful fishing boats deliver their catch to huts in the harbour. Besides leaving with bags full of books visitors often take boxes of fish home for their freezers and cases of Adnams wine. Life is slow and tranquil in Suffolk.

But now in May, our latest festival, Words in the Park, caters for the city side of our dual personalities, albeit in Holland Park which with its flower-filled gardens, trees and calm offers much tranquility. For three days (18-20 May) visitors can move from hearing Jeremy Paxman, Andrew Marr, Maureen Lipman, Sandi Toksvig, Bettany Hughes and many more, to sitting by flower beds in the park or stepping out into the bustle of the marvellous shops of Kensington High Street. Kensington Palace, with its newly designed gardens is just up the road. In fact there is so much to see and do I return to my original musing: town mouse or country mouse? A mix of both seems a good option.

 

Never say Ways With Words doesn’t offer variety and a richness of experience.

(Find out more about the range of Ways With Words experiences on our website: wayswithwords.co.uk  To go on the Ways With Words mailing list phone: 01803 867373. For the latest news sign up for our e-newsletter through the website.)

Grasmere Walkers Discover the Words by the Water Programme

 

Two women walkers came into the café in Grasmere where we were having lunch. Previously we had left a pile of programmes for the Words by the Water Lake District festival on the window ledge. One put down her walking sticks and picked up a programme. She proceeded to open it at the beginning and read it carefully word for word. Maybe she felt that was the right thing to do considering its title but I wouldn’t access the programme like this. If I found this programme I’d flick excitedly through it.

“Wow” I’d say. “Look who’s coming to this festival! Oh I’d love to see Roy Hattersley or Salley Vickers; her novels are great. Oh and Valerie Grove is speaking on her biography of Kay Webb, the founder of the Puffin club. And there’s an event on the history of the Ordnance Survey maps. Can we go? I want to spend all 10 days in Keswick.”

In other words I’d babble on in an incoherent way if I came across the programme. Not our fellow diner. She never mentioned the programme to her companion, never discussed it. Was this because she was totally unimpressed? Or was she just filling in time until her pannini arrived? She had read through Melvyn Bragg’s introduction where he explains he is programming Saturday 5 March as it’s our 10^th festival. Friday 4 March: Michael Frayn, Claire Tomalin, Raymond Blanc – no comment. (“The first w/e is amazing. We’ve got to go!” I’d be babbling with joy.)

By the entry on Maureen Lipman ( Sunday 6 March) the walker’s lunch had arrived and she put the programme down – with no comment.

I wanted to ask her what she thought of the programme, to ask whether she would be coming and if not why not. All this would have been good market research. I could have introduced myself as the director of the festival but I’m so British, so reserved.

She probably is too and would have been polite but dismissive. I know some writers who have been unable to resist telling a stranger who was reading his/her book that he/she was the author only to be met with cold stares. So I remained silent – but curious.

We continued through the torrential Cumbrian rain to leave thousands more damp programmes around. Such serendipity. Will someone pick one up and respond as I would? I feel like the sower in the bible: stoney ground or fertile? Who knows?

Words or shapes? How do you perceive the world?

I went to see the Henry Moore exhibition at Tate Britain. Drawings of mothers and babies, big elm sculptures, small stone ones: each room was a treat. At the end we had a coffee and watched a television programme on his life.

“I think in shapes not words”, Moore said. 

I am the reverse. I think of myself as a words not a shapes person; not surprising as I run Ways With Words. However all our festivals are for people who think in pictures and shapes as well as words. At Dartington Hall the gardens must have been landscaped by someone who saw the world in shapes. The tiltyard has geometric terraces, the row of yew trees are clipped into bulbous shapes, the paths and steps divide the gardens into blocks and there are very shapely sculptures to stroke. There’s even a Henry Moore.

Come to think of it I love shapes almost as much as words.

The festival programme links words and images in many ways. Some writers have written about art and artists: Frances Spalding on the Pipers, Jonathan Jones on Da Vinci and Michelangelo, Michael Bird on Bryan Wynter. There are also some practicing artists discussing and showing images of their work. Richard Long had a major retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain last year. It left me speechless with emotion and awe – wordless in fact. Martin Creed (like Long, a Turner Prize-winner) is explaining his subversive art, as is Edmund de Waal, the world famous ceramicist. I shall be rushing to all of these – suspending my word-dominated life and reveling in the visual.

The Ways With Words festival of words and ideas takes place at Dartington Hall, Devon, 9-19 July. Come to hear the above, but if art isn’t your thing try kissing with Lana Citron, food with Rose Prince, wine with Simon Hoggart, waves with Gavin Pretor-Pinney, wild-life with Simon King – and loads more.

The programme is on-line now.

 

Again We Ask – Can Creative Writing be Taught?

If you ask writers this question many give a resounding 'No'. Why is this? Do they like to think they were born with a remarkable gift?  Or perhaps they feel that what they have achieved doesn’t depend on their education or experiences. Yet times have changed; many universities are now offering courses in Creative Writing and published writers supplement their income by teaching on them. I assume they believe in what they are doing.

I believe in what they are doing which is why Ways With Words asks published writers to teach on Creative Writing Courses in France and Italy. As an educationalist I have great faith in people’s abilities to learn, to change, to develop. But teaching is not straightforward. Some people just need confidence and reassurance – part of the educationalist’s role is developing self-belief. I can hear cynics saying that some people have too much confidence in their work and it is often misplaced. True, but that too is part of the teacher’s job: to offer constructive criticism, to assess what each person needs. For some it will be the nuts and bolts of writing: help with plotting, character development, dialogue. For others time and a thoughtful consideration of the content of their work will be the spur they need. And why France and Italy? Sometimes a break from life’s busyness is essential to develop writing, permission to spend time being creative. This is easier in a beautiful environment away from home and so the location of the course is important. But what really transforms people’s lives and abilities is a mystery and one that constantly intrigues me.

  The writing group in France

The writing group in Italy 

No apologies then for revisiting this topic at the Words by the Water literature festival in Cumbria. We have an interesting panel to discuss the question: Can Creative Writing Be Taught? James Long has taught on the Ways With Words writing courses in Italy and also been involved in the Arvon foundation. Chris Wadsworth came on the Ways With Words writing course in Italy and was taught by James Long. She now has a 2 book deal for her short stories that were based on the artists and customers she has met running the Castlegate Gallery. James - and others in Italy - played a part in getting the books in print. But what part?

Sarah Hall has been on both sides of the Creative Writing experience both as a student and as a tutor. She is one of the country’s most successful young novelists and has been both short and long listed for the Booker prize. What does she feel she has learnt – and what has she taught others - about this mysterious process?   

Where will the discussion go? I’m interested to know.

       

Can Creative Writing be Taught? with Sarah Hall, Chris Wadsworth and James Long - Friday 12 March at 12 noon.

WORDS BY THE WATER LITERATURE FESTIVAL at Theatre by the Lake, Keswick.

Art and Memoir Writing Courses in the North Dordogne, France: Wednesday June 9 - 16, 2010