4 Sessions Starting May 11th

Thursdays 6-8pm (BSTT)

via Zoom

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This course of 4 workshops explores those geographical spaces, between town and countryside, and areas thought of as the edge, and the people that live or venture there.  

Through readings of extracts from fiction, creative non fiction, academic writing about edgelands and photographic and moving image, you will draw inspiration from the craft techniques, approaches and themes in the works. A variety of short, timed writing exercises will be a springboard into your own writing of edgeland stories.  You can sign up for the full series of just specific dates. Suited to all skill levels and writers of any genre or artists of any medium.

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Week One May 11th Going to the Edge
o Notions of edgelands - exploring extracts from writers who defined and identified edgelands
and their character; your creative responses to concepts
o Mapping edgelands - drawing maps of interest (real or imagined) of edges you’re drawn to
in your current location, former home or place.
o Creating inventories through research and imagination of those spaces, naming features,
creating new language for the unknowns.
o Stories of edgelands – draw inspiration from extracts from writers’ work and write own
using fragmentary techniques

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Week Two Edgelands May 25th – Ghosts and Rebirth
o Finding the layers in the edgeland – tracing the footprint of history, socio-economic traces,
powerlines of land
o Sites of transformation – stories of development, abandonment, redevelopment
o Refugia – blossomings, rebirth, pockets of change
o Edgeland as metaphor

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Week Three June 15th Crossing our Edgelands
o Mapping your (your character’s) badlands/frontiers/interfaces – real or imagined, places or
moments
o Braiding external and internal edgelands to tell stories of disruption and transitions
o Borrowing from geometry to shape our edgeland stories
o Exploring our growing edge in our writing

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Week Four June 22nd Collaging our Edgelands
o Scrapbooking images/texts/annotations of the edgelands explored to make new edgelands
o Experiment with erasure, found poetry, spatial layouts, folding and shapes
o Collective collaging on Riseup platform for generating new threads on edgeland stories

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