Arvon Teachings

There’s something incredibly special about Arvon Lumb Bank, where I’ve been tutoring all week. It’s a writing residential centre. It’s in Ted Hughes’ stunning old house. The surroundings are breath-taking and, while you’re there, it’s as though you’re in a beautiful, tranquil, bubble – detached from the world and the internet and phone calls, and where you can just breathe and write.

My digs…

I was there all week, working with students from a number of schools who are on the First Story programme (I’m writer in residence at two schools for them, so I already know that they’re the brilliant).

And I’ve had the best time. There was little rest – workshops and tutorials and activities filled the days and so, so much magic was created. So many brilliant, heart-breaking, funny, exciting stories and poems were written. And, the best of it, I got to spend a whole week in the company of some of the best bunch of people there are. We laughed, we wrote, we shared and we read and, when it was over, some of us might even have cried*. I saw friendships form and people grow. It’s reminded me, if I ever needed reminding, just how important our words and our stories are, and how important it is that people are brave enough to share them and that, when they do, we listen.

At some point I ended up having a birthday and I’m not sure how anyone knew (I’m not much of a birthday person, but people can be sneaky like that) but… just look at this cake! (Vegan, too.)

And this card…

And someone even learned to play Happy Birthday for me on the piano.

It was all very, very special.

If you ever have chance to go on an Arvon residential, do. It might, possibly, change your life.

There’s even a semi-resident cat,

And, to Jasmine Anne Cooray to work with there: THANK YOU! You are amazing.

And GUMBO!

*definitely, definitely not me…

Still Here!

 

It’s been a long time since I’ve had any chance to do much around there – these past three or four months have just slipped by. And I’ve been busy. There has been lots of teaching and workshop running.

We wrote about aliens landing in Sheffield in a bunch of libraries there and it was a wonderful thing. And not only did we produce some genuinely brilliant work, I also got the chance to see a few familiar faces from things I’d done around there a couple of years before. And the best bit – they remembered what they’d learned and they’d been sharing it, teaching their friends and their siblings and relatives all about good writing. It made me very proud because it was one of the few times I actually got to see how doing this sort of work in communities actually changes thingsAnd it really does.

Since Hive’s festival (which was the last thing I mentioned here, I think) ‘halfway smile‘ has launched. It’s a marvellous, brilliant, stunning collection of short fiction and poetry from the talented young of South Yorkshire. Check out what Ian McMillan and Kate Long (who judged the prose competition) had to say about it…

There have been other things, of course – I’m nearing the end of a big old project in Doncaster (more on that soon) and I’m currently compiling and editing an anthology of work from a school Leeds, where I’m writer in residence for the wonderful First Story.

So I have been busy. I have been on trains. A lot. And I’ve been writing as well. A lot. It’s a strange situation to be in – being a writer who’s usually too busy to do things with the work he’s written but there’ll be  a gap soon which I’m going to fill with rest and sleep and getting a bit fitter (the train diet isn’t a flattering one) and more of my own writing bits, and I’m looking forward to it.

Apologies to regular readers here for my silence. I never forgot you. More, hopefully, soon.

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