Ever wanted to write poetry, flash fiction or prose? In period 5 on Wednesdays, FASoS staff member Paul Stephenson is running a weekly series of 8 workshops in creative writing, open to all FASoS students, academic staff and administrative staff. You could follow the whole course or just drop in for a single 2-hour workshop.
Particularly welcome are those who’ve never written before, other than reports and academic papers!
The practical sessions are aimed at getting you writing, but also challenging your conceptions of contemporary poetry and prose as well as exploring the possibilities of life writing. There will be lots of exercises for us to try out together in class. We will explore a whole range of writing strategies for generating new work. The sessions will use prompts from poetry, prose and flash fiction in English. Participants are free to write poetry or prose, in English or in a language of their choosing.
The workshops will be fun and fairly fast-paced. There is no obligation to read back your new work to the group but we might, towards the end of the course, edit some work together in class and submit a selection to Mosaïek, the faculty’s student-run, independent, non-for profit, arts and literature magazine.
The classes will take place on Wednesdays at 13.30-15.30 in GG76 0.16 in April (10, 17, 24), May (1, 8, 15 (not 22), 29) and June 5. It would be wonderful to have a mix of staff and students taking part together. If you’d like to find out more about what it entails, or sign up for one or preferably all the workshops, contact Paul (p.stephenson@maastrichtuniversity.nl) now or the day before the workshop you’d like to attend, to ensure enough photocopies of the various reading prompts we’ll use in the exercises.
The course builds on the Minor in Creative Writing that Paul taught in 2017, covering for colleague Caoillin Hughes. Paul is a published poet with an MA in Creative Writing with Pedagogic Studies from the Manchester Writing School, the largest postgraduate English and Creative Writing community in the UK. He recently co-edited the ‘Europe’ issue of Magma.
‘A Position at the University’, by Lydia Davis
I think I know what sort of person I am. But then I think, But this stranger will
imagine me quite otherwise when he or she hears this or that to my credit, for
instance that I have a position at the university: the fact that I have a position at
the university will appear to mean that I must be the sort of person who has a
position at the university. But then I have to admit, with surprise, that, after all,
it is true that I have a position at the university. And if it is true, then perhaps I
really am the sort of person you imagine when you hear that a person has a
position at the university. But, on the other hand, I know I am not the sort of
person I imagine when I hear that a person has a position at the university.
Then I see what the problem is: when others describe me this way, they appear
to describe me completely, whereas in fact they do not describe me completely,
and a complete description of me would include truths that seem quite
incompatible with the fact that I have a position at the university.
From Almost No Memory, published by Picador. Copyright © 1997 Lydia Davis.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52125/a-position-at-the-university
