Kickstart your Writing Project with Ashley Hay
This four-week intensive masterclass for writers at all stages of their careers offers the opportunity to get started on a new writing project or breathe life into a project you have abandoned or are struggling with. This exercise-driven program for writers working in any genre will explore new solutions to old problems and start a productive conversation between you and your work.
Each writer will be encouraged to produce their own work to share with the class. Short writing prompts and exercises will be set inspired by weekly readings, and each writer will have in-class opportunities for feedback from Ashley and the group.
Each writer will also have a 40 minute one-on-one session with Ashley Hay.
This is a small group program for 8 participants.
HOW TO APPLY
Entry to this course is by application. Writers will be selected based on the creative potential of their work, commitment to craft, openness to collaborating with your peers, and the balance in the group.
Course fees are $795 or $700 for Varuna alumni. Payment terms are negotiable if you cannot pay the whole fee upfront.
One 40 minute consultation is included in the course fee. An optional second 1-hour consultation with Ashley is available to all participants following the program at a cost of $130 incl GST.
Applications close at 5pm on Monday 11 March, 2024. All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their submission by 14 March.
Feel free to call 02 4782 5674 or email amy@varuna.com.au to discuss your application.
IMPORTANT DATES AND INFORMATION
Start date: Wed 10 April 2024
End date: Wed 1 May 2024
Zoom duration: 2 hour blocks from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (AEST)
The writing platform WetInk will be used for sharing work and extended discussion.
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Week 1: Intention setting
This is the groundwork week: starting out, or starting again, we’ll explore the kind of writer you’d like to be, and the kind of work you hope to do to bring your story into the world. Digging deep into how you work and how you’d like to work – in the community of class, and in your own time – this session helps you set yourself up for success throughout the program, and gives you back-ups and supports for when things (like life!) inevitably intervene.
All participants will also have a 40 minute one-on-one consultation with Ashley Hay this week.
Week 2: Inspiration
Where did your story come from – and what more can you find out to help to make it whole? This session explores the possibilities of tools spanning both research and reflection to keep your story, your characters, your line of enquiry, your narrative arc growing and expanding. From lateral reading to the strange reliabilities of serendipity, how can you feed your imagination and your work?
Week 3: Countering writer’s block
There are always hard days, and there are always obstacles. This week provides a toolkit of practical interventions to knock down the walls that spring up, sneak around the unexpected roadblocks, or step away from the desk to come back and start again. Applicable for any genre or form, this list will help you navigate ways to keep moving and stay with the page.
Week 4: Going forward
As the course closes, this week checks back to your intentions from the first week: what can you reshape, recast – or maybe even throw away – that will help to keep you on track and on the page? With an added focus on feedback and revision – both for yourself, and amongst the cohort – this week’s program will help you to strengthen and refine the work you’re bringing into being beyond the end of these group sessions.
Dr Ashley Hay has published three novels and four books of narrative non-fiction. From 2018 to 2022 she was the editor of Griffith Review, the second in its history, curating, commissioning and collaborating with more than five hundred emerging and established writers across all genres. She draws on more than thirty years’ experience in the world of words in her work as a writer, editor, mentor and facilitator, and in her design and delivery of bespoke workshops, coaching sessions and other writing opportunities for individuals and groups.
Ashley Hay’s work has appeared in anthologies and journals including the Griffith Review, The Monthly, Best Australian Essays, Best Australian Short Stories and Best Australian Science Writing. Her books include Gum: The Story of Eucalypts and Their Champions (2021) and the novels The Railwayman’s Wife (2014) and A Hundred Small Lessons (2017). Her work across the genres of fiction, science, journalism and essays has received and been shortlisted for prizes including the Australian Literary Studies’ Colin Roderick Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Nita B. Kibble Award and the UNSW Press/Bragg Prize for Science Writing.