Writing Workshops – Are They Good For You?

On Saturday I helped Wendy run a writing workshop at Bishop Auckland Town Hall on Life Writing. As always we got together before hand to plan it, only this time our heads were still floating somehwere between The North East and France – maybe over The Channel!

Nevertheless, as always, we gave it our best shot – to us it is very important when people invest time and money in a workshop that they go away feeling that it has been in some way worthwhile, hopefully inspiring.

Often I find that if the workshop seems to have gone well I may be tired (sometimes shatttered) but I  am invariably inspired and enthused. From this I conclude that workshops are good for you and that goes for the tutuors too. I never come away from a workshop without – a fragment, an idea – a longer piece of writing which I invariably use in my work. Perhaps this is beacause we always write alongside the group. This time I had a piece of prose about a barely known grandmother that I want to use in my poetry.

The best thing about workshoping is of course the writers you meet, and Saturday was no exception. From a long list, only four actually turned up on the day but what a four! They were all great writers – all with quite unique voices and some brilliant ideas, so that I am very much looking forward to our next meeting in August.

I came away feeling inspired – I hope they did.

I’d be interested to hear your views on workshops – I feel there may be many tales to tell -…!