Summer Newsletter 2023
Welcome…
A long, full summer is a time to gather together the richness of our reading and thinking to store and then use in the months to come…
WHAT WE’VE BEEN READING:
Elske Rahill’s immaculate collection of short stories “In White Ink” reminds us that Irish literature need not be stuffed with Irish tropes and cliches in order to be literary and imaginative and linguistically inventive…in short, Irish.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/15/in-white-ink-by-elske-rahill-review
WHAT WE’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:
The legacy of wonderful Irish short story writer Mary Lavin by her granddaughters who are both novelists.
WHAT’S GOT US THINKING:
Thomas Merton and his concept of writing as vocation. This twentieth century mystic, writer and monk shows us that writing can be part of a meditative life and can fill us with a sense of calm and wonder and intellectual engagement that has nothing to do with the busy distractions of the marketplace.
https://www.shambhala.com/echoing-silence.html
WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO LATELY:
We’ve been hanging out in Sutherland walking and talking and reminding each other of the power of friendship and books and sharing a writing practice and life.
It reminds us how much a long relationship with another writer can enrich the creative process - building our reading and ideas about literature along with being able to talk through work in progress and sound out future plans and projects while getting tips from each other on the professional side of the writing life, from publishing and agenting through to events and festivals. Check out the link below for news of some famous writing friendships and make sure you make time for your own writing buddy!
https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/515-6-fascinating-friendships-between-famous-authors
UPCOMING COURSES:
Our final course of the year will be our popular on-line short story weekend She Writes: Women & the Short Story : Friday Evening Sept 8 – Sunday Sept 10
https://www.wordpathscotland.com/shewrites
Places still available but filling fast!
Our next one-day Mentoring course will be in Spring 2024 - details to follow.
In the meantime we also offer 1-1 Mentoring sessions with Meaghan
https://www.wordpathscotland.com/mentoring
BE INSPIRED !
…to remain myself, and to write about it; to put myself down on paper, in such a situation, with the most complete simplicity and integrity – masking nothing, confusing no issue; this is very hard…~ Thomas Merton, Echoing Silence
