John Pratt Launches New Book

'First Tuesday' Meeting 3rd November

'Memories in Creative Writing'

With Stuart Randall

Chesterfield Library

'First  Tuesday' Meetings are held every month except August and are suitable for anyone  who is interested in discussing and undertaking practical exercises in creative writing - prose or poetry

They are held in the Meeting Room Lower Ground Floor - Next to 'Browser' Cafe 

 

All welcome - no booking necessary- just turn up

Weird and Wonderful 'First Tuesday' Meeting 1st September 2015

Weird and Wonderful

- a workshop to encourage lateral thinking -

Introduction

I'd like to invite you to do some lateral thinking, to think outside the box. The title of the workshop perhaps should have been Weird or Wonderful because you may well have either or both reactions to the activities I’m going to invite you to do. The idea is to get your mind working in a way it might find unusual, to encourage, perhaps, a different kind of creativity. I hope you’ll find it interesting but don’t worry if it doesn’t work for you. Our creative Muses all work in different ways.

Exercise 1

PROVERBS FOR TODAY by Paul Eluard and Benjamin Péret

I came, I sat, I departed

A crab by any other name would forget the sea

One good mistress deserves another

When reason is away, smiles will play

Grasp the eye by the monocle

Spare the cradle and spoil the child

Finish these in whatever way you like:

A bird in the hand is worth....................................................................................................

Cleanliness is next to ..........................................................................................................

Don’t try to run before ..........................................................................................................

The proof of the pudding is ..................................................................................................

Money is the root of .............................................................................................................

Every picture tells ................................................................................................................

Truth is stranger than...........................................................................................................

There’s no smoke without ....................................................................................................

Exercise 2

Write for ten minutes about what you think is happening in this picture, or anything the picture brings to mind.

Exercise 3

Look at work by Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher - available online. Choose one picture that

appeals to you.

Something to think about :

What title for the picture springs immediately to mind?

What emotion is conveyed by the picture?

How does the picture make you feel?

Does the image remind you of anything else?

Is any kind of narrative suggested?

Write what comes into your mind.

Heather Shaw

'First Tuesday' Meeting 6th October

'Smorgasbord of Creative Writing'

 

The October session (2 pm to 4 pm) will feature a variety of exercises provided by Moorside Writers to showcase and improve your creative writing

Chesterfield Library

'First  Tuesday' Meetings are held every month except August and are suitable for anyone  who is interested in discussing and undertaking practical exercises in creative writing - prose or poetry

Dorothy Cooke

It is with great sadness that we record that one of the founder members of Moorside Writers, Dorothy Cooke, died on 9th August 2015. A thanksgiving service to celebrate her life was held at St John the Baptist Church in Dronfield on 21st August.

Dorothy  on 1st July, at the launch of her collection of poems, A Dronfield Childhood.

Congratulations are in order, as Moorside's John Pratt has won first prize in the Grindleford Annual Show writing competition with his poem "Summer"!

Summer

I wait on each December day,

impatient for that solstice switch

toward a summer-new campaign.

towards a longer evening light

with bluebells rising overnight

and lazy late June afternoons.

And yet the season’s longest day

is somehow just a surreal play,

an orchid dream that fades away:

mere prelude to the fullest bloom

when summer steps out from the wings

carelessly beyond her noon,

to stroll along blackberry lanes,

by meadows flocked with buttercup;

hedges bound with hip and sloe;

footpaths freshly overgrown,

the land full-frocked, and wholly ripe,

dew-laden dawns and scented nights

– this is summer’s sweeping flight.

You may recall Moorside's Stuart Randall won first prize last year!

'First Tuesday' Meeting 1st September

'Weird and Wonderful'

 

Heather Shaw 

Chesterfield Library

'First  Tuesday' Meetings are held every month except August and are suitable for anyone  who is interested in discussing and undertaking practical exercises in creative writing - prose or poetry