Les Soeurs Anglaises run three and five day textile, creative writing, and dance workshops led by the very best, and most experienced, internationally renowned artists/teachers. Our 2010 programme includes a ‘Poetry in Motion’ 5 day workshop led by internationally respected poet Roger McGough, as well as screenwriting, crime, and creative writing courses – all led by masters of their genre.

… how we glimpse a blur of smoke in the air, look at a pair of shoes in a shop window, or a group of men on a street corner, how we hear rain on the roof or music on the radio upstairs, how we meet or avoid the eyes of a neighbour or a stranger. That pressure bends our angle of vision whether we recognize it or not…When poetry lays its hand on our shoulder we are, to an almost physical degree, touched and moved…

Penelope Shuttle, whom we have published in The Reader 18 (which you can buy here for only £3), has been in touch to tell us about a poetry residential course she is leading in France at Chateau Ventenac fro 24th April to 1st May. More details on the course, ‘Word and Self’, can be found here.

Find out more on their website.

2. Sound and Silence A weekend exploring the interplay of poetry and meditation. Facilitated by Roselle Angwin and Martin Pitt 4th-7th December 2009
At The Barefoot Barn, Chagford, Devon.

This experimental weekend will explore the dynamics of inner peace and creative expression. Meditation, silence and mindfulness practice will be woven together with periods of creative writing and other forms such as movement, landscape work and visual media. The aim will be to nurture our personal stillness from where creativity can flow naturally; to allow our silent depths to find expression through the meaning and music of poetry. In this process we hope to share our experience within a small group in a spirit of dance, dynamism, and fun. Meditation practices will be introduced and conducted according to the mindfulness tradition of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. No previous experience of meditation techniques is needed. The cost of this event has been kept low to encourage a wide-ranging participation. However, places are limited and early booking is advised.

www.fire-in-the-head.co.uk

with Jane Davis, Director of The Reader Organisation

25th August, Liverpool

19 Abercromby Square, Liverpool, L69 7ZG

What have I to leave you but the ruins of old courage, and the lore of old gallantry and hope?  

 

If Wordsworth were to be reborn as a twentieth century American, Gilead is the book he would write. Human, humane, real, devout, and connecting the inner spiritual with the outer public life, this moving novel was mentioned by Barack Obama as a favourite.

While you read this, I am imperishable, somehow more alive than I have ever been.

 

Jane Davis is Founder and Director of The Reader Organisation, a charity on a mission to bring about a reading revolution, making the content of great books available to all. Jane’s talent, energy, and belief in the value of reading are an inspiration to all who meet her: don’t miss this chance to experience the power of the reading revolution for yourself!

For more information please contact Casi Dylan, Training Manager, on casidylan@thereader.org.uk or 0151 794 2830.

You can download a booking form here: PDF/ Word.

10.00am – 12.00noon
Starting Monday 1st June for six weeks
The Lauries Community Centre, 142 Claughton Road, Birkenhead, CH41 6EY
£40 (£25 concessions, £15 income support)

We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. – Marcel ProustCome with The Reader Organisation on a journey into the heart of the short story. Over the course of six weeks we will explore six short stories, each concerned in different ways with travel, a journey, being abroad.

Which is ‘foreign’, the visitor or the country visited? Does travel open the mind or close it in? Or, to put it another way, does it isolate or connect?

We will share our journeys with writers including Kipling, Forster and Katherine Mansfield, in the company of our ever-reliable guide Brian Nellist (aka Nellibob). With almost fifty years experience teaching the reading of literature, Brian continues to bring serious wisdom, deep attention and an engaging manner to this perennially popular summer course.

Copies of the text will be provided. No preparatory reading necessary.

To book your place on this summer course please complete a booking form, which you can download here.

For more information, contact Casi Dylan (call 0151 794 2830 / 07870 106 745).

As we paused a few pages into Jane Gardam’s short story, The Pangs of Love, I was really impressed and pleased by the group’s readiness to discuss the piece. The story dealt with ideas concerning feminism and male and female roles both in myth and modern society – something that everyone in room related to on one level or another. Two members of the group, Sam and Jill, were very well read and suggested further reading on these subjects themselves. It was also a joy to see Richard, who did not have the same background in reading as the others, tripping over himself to get to read the next passage. We all shared a good laugh over Gardam’s irreverent perspective on Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid (the handsome Prince is ‘good in the bath’ rather than bed!) and really got into character whilst reading U A Fanthorpe’s Not My Best Side. Jill’s young St George was particularly memorable. The poem also allowed discussion of Uccello’s painting Saint George and the Dragon, leaving us all feeling rather cultural all round!

The session also drove home to me how social the act of reading really is. As the group negotiated the pile of novels plonked before them in order to choose their reading for the next few weeks, the more experience members seemed to have made a conscious decision to choose a work that would appeal and be accessible to everyone involved. David Almond’s Skellig came out on top, a simple book with great depth, and something that will please Sam and Jill as well as Richard. 

I was as impressed with the people in my group as I was with the START centre itself; it seemed to be a warren of creativity. Around each corner was another group at work, another collage, another painting. Here’s to the new GIR group adding another splash of colour!

Posted by Casi Dylan

The Reader Organisation, which aims to put shared reading at the heart of everyday life, now runs ‘Read to Lead’ training programmes:

The ‘Read to Lead’ One-Day Workshop provides an introduction to the principles of ‘Get Into Reading’ for anyone interested in bibliotherapy.

The ‘Read to Lead’ Five-Day Accredited Facilitator Training is an intensive residential course intended for people who wish to become accredited Get Into Reading facilitators.

·         September Course: Sun 21st – Fri 26th September 2008 (Application Closed)

·         January Course: Sun 18th – Fri 23rd January 2009

The programme this year is extremely varied, with courses on single authors such as Elizabeth Gaskell and Virginia Woolf, historical periods in ‘The Turn of the Century: Novels 1890-1910′ and specific topics such as ghost stories. A course on ‘Shakespeare’s Kings’ ties in with the Pete Postlethwaite King Lear at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre, while ‘Quick Fix Lit’ offers ‘Literature for the Harrassed and Hurried’. The courses come in five, ten, and twenty-week formats, and there are also day-courses offered in the ‘English Literature Saturdays’ series. The full list of English courses is here.

Sign up by phone on 0151 794 6900, or by completing an enrolment form. For more information go to the information page on the CE website.

‘MASHA: But what’s the point of it all?

TUZENBAKH: The point? Look, it’s snowing out there. What’s the point of that?’ (Act II)

Fees: £28. £18 if you are a retirement pensioner over the age of 60 or a full-time student, or if you receive Job Seekers’ Allowance, Working Tax Credit, Council Tax Benefit, Income Support, Housing Benefit, Disabled Person’s Tax Credit, Incapacity Benefit, or if you are an unwaged dependant of someone in receipt of one of these benefits.

How to enrol: Advance enrolment is essential by Thursday 17 January. You may enrol and pay by debit / credit card by telephoning 0151 794 6900. Alternatively, you can complete an enrolment form (from the Continuing Education prospectus or on the CE website) and send it to us with a cheque for the course fee.

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We’ll explore the significance of place, both real and imaginary, in five wonderful novels spanning a century. Each two hour session will focus on reading, discussing and enjoying a number of selected passages. Jane Austen’s 1816 masterpiece Emma will be our departure point and personally I can’t wait to journey to Highbury and to reacquainte myself, in your company, with Emma Woodhouse, Mr. Knightley and friends.  It would be great if you can read Emma before the first meeting but don’t worry if you can’t manage – copies of the passages, and various other goodies, will be provided.

In subsequent months we’ll be reading Hardy’s Return of the Native, Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, George Eliot’s Middlemarch and finally visiting Joyce’s Dublin in his short story collection The Dubliners.

I am really excited about teaching this course as some of my most vivid reading experiences have been with C. E. classes both as teacher and initially as a student.  looking forward to meeting you.

Here’s the link to Continuing Education at Liverpool. The closing date for signing up is Monday 1 October.