Wednesday 11 May 2022

Retreat West newsletters

Here are the latest newsletters, including detail of the Opening Lines competition deadline Sunday 15 May:

 

iOpening Lines competition deadline is Sunday!

In our Opening Lines contest you can win a review from a professional editor to help you take your novel to the next level. You’ll get a full report telling you what’s working well and what needs developing that will cover structure, pace, prose, plot, characters and more. 

We’ll choose FIVE winners from all entries and all will receive a full manuscript review.

Looking for inspiration? Check out this list of 150 of the most compelling opening lines in literature, or hop on to twitter and tag us in your favourite! 
 

 

 

Copyright © 2022 Retreat West, All rights reserved.


Our mailing address is:

Retreat West

Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House

Trevissome Park

Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN

United Kingdom



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Send us your micros! 


The first and second prize winners share 50% of the entry fees and the People's Prize winner gets a mystery prize (previously they've won Community Membership, feedback reports, flash festival tickets, books, notepads, and lots of lovely writerly things!).

Plus everyone shortlisted gets published and wins a prize too and all will be entered into our new annual Retreat West Awards.

We can't wait to read your stories inspired by this month's prompt - CATCH 
 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022 Retreat West, All rights reserved.


Our mailing address is:

Retreat West

Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House

Trevissome Park

Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN

United Kingdom



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I have been having a re-think about the course costs at RW as I want to keep it affordable for everyone, while also being able to pay my own living costs. But I started Retreat West in the first place as I couldn't afford to learn about writing and it's really important to me that it doesn't become another organisation that is unaffordable for writers. 

So with that in mind, I'd really appreciate it if you could take this short survey for me to help me decide on what to charge for courses.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Amanda x

 

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Copyright © 2022 Retreat West, All rights reserved.


Our mailing address is:

Retreat West

Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House

Trevissome Park

Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN

United Kingdom



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Want help, advice, cheering on and 1-1 support as you write or revise your novel?
 

We're now accepting applications for The Novel Creator, a fully mentored course that will teach you all the tools novelists use to create compelling, emotionally resonant novels with memorable narrators. So you can use what you learn to write this novel, and all of the novels you'll write in the future.

This year's course starts on 19th September and ends with an online event in September 2023 where you get feedback on your novel premise from agents and indie publishers and make vital industry connections.
 

2019-20 Course Success Stories

 

 

 

 

 

Working on shorter projects? 
 

 

We've got 2 online writing festivals coming up! There's great workshops and masterclasses focused on short stories and flash fictions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's a 6-week short story course with Amanda Saint starting on the 6th June.

 

 

 

 

Plus don't forget we meet weekly on Friday mornings for a flash writing session - join us for flash reading and writing fun! Pay what you can afford to come along or these sessions are included with our community membership.
 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022 Retreat West, All rights reserved.


Our mailing address is:

Retreat West

Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House

Trevissome Park

Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN

United Kingdom



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After the huge success of our first two Online Flash Fest, we're really excited to be running a Short Story Fest this summer! We have a fantastic line-up to help develop our short story writing craft.

Join us for a day of workshops hosted by Amanda Saint and Gaynor Jones who are joined by contemporary short story writers and publishers.

All sessions are run on Zoom and will be recorded so everyone who buys a tickets gets to keep the sessions to watch again as often as they like. Or if you’re in a different time zone, or just busy that day, you can get a bargain Recordings Only ticket!
 


10.00 – 10.45
WELCOME AND KEYNOTE: ANNA VAUGHT – THE INTENSE SNAPSHOT

‘A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.

LORRIE MOORE


As someone who writes both novels and short stories, Anna will talk about the pleasure derived from this short form She will explore the idea of the snapshot, the short-lived and intense experience and look at story structure in the light of that, coming to the end, without which your story is lost.

Anna is a novelist, essayist, short fiction writer, editor, secondary English teacher, mentor, campaigner and author of four books, including 2020’s Saving Lucia and Famished. Her work is published in journals, anthologies and the national press and she has been a monthly columnist for The Bookseller. New novel, The Zebra and Lord Jones, is on agency submission, while a book on writing, The Alchemy, is launching with Unbound. Anna’s second story collection, Ravished, is published by Reflex Press this autumn and her memoir, These Envoys of Beauty, in spring 2023. Anna also speaks as a guest university lecturer, at events on a community and national level, and is a tutor for Jericho Writers.
 


11.00 – 12.30
THE ART OF THE SHORT STORY WITH SAM JORDISON

Picture of Sam Jordison

Sam Jordison will explain the power and importance of short stories and why they can do things that novels can’t. He will also look at their sometimes precarious place within the UK publishing industry, the importance of competitions and what he looks out for in stories as an editor.

Sam Jordison is a co-director of the award winning publisher Galley Beggar Press, which hosts an annual Short Story Prize. He has worked on editorial for books like Alex Pheby’s Mordew, Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks Newburyport, Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing and Sleby Wynn Schwartz’s After Sappho. He is also the author of several works of non-fiction and a journalist and book reviewer.
 



12.30 – 13.00 SOCIAL EVENT

Chat with other writers attending the festival in the Zoom breakout rooms.

13.00 – 14.00 LUNCH

 


14.00 – 15.30
FRESH APPROACHES TO THE SHORT STORY WITH SARAH SCHOFIELD

This workshop will give you the opportunity to try out new ideas and approaches to refresh your short story writing. You’ll be led through writing activities and have an opportunity to share creatively together. Sarah will look at and discuss some contemporary short story examples to help inspire new writing. It will be an enriching, creative and supportive session that you will leave with a range of story ideas, short story seeds, that are ready to nurture and grow beyond the workshop.

Sarah Schofield is an award-winning writer of short fiction. Her stories have appeared in several Comma Press anthologies, Best British Short Stories 2020 (Salt), Synaesthesia Magazine,  Morning Star, Woman’s Weekly and many others.  Sarah is a Creative Writing lecturer at Edge Hill University. Her debut collection Safely Gathered In was published by Comma Press in November 2021. She is judge of the Short Story category in the 2022 Retreat West Prize.
 


15.45 -16.45
UNSETTLING YOUR READER WITH JOANNA CAMPBELL

Joanna Campbell will deconstruct short stories in which the characters lead
apparently ordinary lives. She will explain how you can find different ways of introducing hints of the extraordinary — the small shifts of tone and language which warn the reader something is not right — and how to capture the crucial moment the status quo is interrupted.

Joanna is a full-time writer from the Cotswolds. Her short story collection, When Planets Slip Their Tracks, was shortlisted for the Rubery International Book Award and longlisted for the Edge Hill University Prize. Her novel, Instructions for the Working Day, will be published in August 2022 by Fairlight Books. Her novella-in-flash, Sybilla, won the inaugural National Flash Fiction Day Novella-in- Flash Award and will be published in June 2022. Her novella-in-flash, A Safer Way to Fall, was a runner-up in the inaugural Bath Novella-in-Flash Award and published in the anthology, How To Make A Window Snake, by Ad Hoc Fiction. Joanna’s short stories have won first place in the Exeter Writers competition, the Bath Short Story Award Local Prize, the London Short Story Prize, the Magic Oxygen Literary Prize and the Retreat West Short Story Prize. Her flash-fiction won second place in the 2017 Bridport Prize, for which her short stories have been shortlisted many times.
 


FESTIVAL CLOSE 17.00 – 17.30

With readings from the winning writers in the 2021 RW Short Story Prize.
 


FESTIVAL COSTS

We have a reduced rate price for our Community Members so if you want to join first, you can do that here. Otherwise use the Non-Members or Recordings Only links below.
 

£40 Non-Members
 
£35 Community Members
 
£25 Recordings Only

 

LOW INCOME WRITERS

We have a small number of free or half-price tickets for low-income writers. Email us to get one.


If you’d like to donate a ticket for a writer, you can do that here.

Donate a ticket

 

Copyright © 2022 Retreat West, All rights reserved.


Our mailing address is:

Retreat West

Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House

Trevissome Park

Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN

United Kingdom



Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp

 

 


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