Workshops

Throughout the year Sunday Writers’ Club are running a couple of online writing workshops. Like everything we offer at Sunday Writers’ Club, the workshops are designed to be friendly, inspirational and informative. Great writing development opportunities guaranteed.

Upcoming Workshop

Photo ©National Centre for Writing

This workshop is now fully booked.

(If you have taken part in our 24-Hour Writing Challenge on the 6th October 2024, you receive a free space – no need to book. You will be receiving your Zoom link before the event.)

3rd November 2024, 19:30-21:30 C.E.T. (Vienna-time) – Redrafting and Editing Workshop with Megan Bradbury

Megan Bradbury was born in the United States and grew up in England. She gained an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and has remained in Norwich, which is a UNESCO City of Literature. Megan now works in association with the UK’s Nation Centre for Writing as a mentor, helping to develop aspiring writers’ talents across a wide range of form and genre. She is a previous recipient of the Escalator Literature prize and her writing has appeared in the Irish Times and the Times Literary Supplement.

Megan’s debut novel, ‘Everyone Is Watching’ (Picador) is a love-letter to New York and some of the creative giants who built and defined the city. Spanning generations in its epic yet intimate sweep of history, the novel was described by John Boyne as ‘Extraordinary’, by Olivia Laing as ‘Dirty, dangerous and delicious,’ while the Guardian called it ‘Beautiful: unusual, intoxicating and bold’, and chose it as one their books of the year. The novel was also longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize.

We are delighted and excited to have Megan run a one-off, online workshop for Sunday Writers’ Club. In her workshop she will help us to develop our redrafting skills, as well as giving us valuable hints and tips on how to edit our writing.

You can find out more about Megan, her writing and her work as a mentor on her website.

Past Workshops

12. November 2023 – Memoir Writing Workshop with Catherine Simpson

We enjoyed a unique, two hour online workshop exploring memoir writing and getting real-life down on the page led by the wonderful Catherine Simpson.

Catherine has published two memoirs: When I Had a Little Sister, about the death by suicide of her sister, Tricia, and recently, One Body about growing up and growing older in a woman’s body, written while she was being treated for breast cancer.

Catherine’s writing has been described as ‘tormented, riveting and bleakly funny… heart-rending and compassionate’ by the Observer and ‘deep and soulful’ by the Sunday Times.’

Find out more about Catherine and her work here.

2. July 2023 – ‘Step by Step’ Online Creative Writing Workshop with Paul Malone

We explored the typical stages in a writer’s journey, the challenges (and opportunities) faced at each stage, and identify where you are in your journey. Through reflective writing, each of us will explore our writer’s “dream”—crystallising in our minds the kind of writer we would like to become.

The outcomes of this 75 minute workshop include working on the your vision of the writer you wish to become, your current stage as a writer, creative a plan to help overcome your challenges and a personal accountability chart to keep you writing regularly and stay on track.

Featured image from Nina Uhlikova at Pexels.

18. September 2022 – Short Stories with Jenn Ashworth

The brilliant Jenn Ashworth was one of our most enjoyable Meet the Professional guests in 2021, so it seemed like a great idea to invite her back to SWC and ask her to run a workshop for us. We loved this idiosyncratic and highly-acclaimed novelist, essayist and short story writer for a series of gentle workshop prompts aimed at helping you bring creativity, structure and surprise to your short fiction.

Topics covered included using objects, places and dialogue to start your story, finding the conflict and working towards a resolution. It was a fully interactive experience as we wrote alongside Jenn and shared our work.

Jenn is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Lancashire in the UK and is a wonderful communicator of all aspects of the art we love to pursue.

More about her on her website and Instagram page too @jennashworth82.

Photo © Martin Figura

11. January 2022 – ‘Growth Mindset for Writers’ with Brigid Whoriskey

Brigid is as an executive coach who specialises in helping business leaders take control of their future roadmap by setting clear goals for themselves. She is a natural collaborator who always uses an ethical and inclusive approach and is driven to help the people she works with achieve the goals they set for themselves. Brigid is also a passionate creative writer. During her workshops she taught many valuable techniques that we could then successfully apply to how we approach our writing.

We covered the following questions:
How often do you promise yourself that you are going to set aside time to write, but never do? How challenging do you find it to make time for your writing and, honestly, how well do you utilize that time? Do you set clear writing goals? Do you constantly worry if your writing is good enough? How do you pluck up the courage to send off a submission? How do you cope with receiving yet another rejection letter from a publisher? How do you maintain the focus and positive mindset to keep moving towards achieving your ultimate goal of publication?

7. November 2021 – ‘Beginnings’ with Joanna Nadian

The bestselling novelist and creative writing lecturer Dr Joanna Nadin was one of our most popular guests for Meet the Professionals earlier in 2021. We were extremely excited to be able to offer a 2 hour online creative writing workshop with Joanna.

Joanna holds a doctorate in young adult fiction and is a senior lecturer in creative writing at Bristol University. Her books for children include the ‘Flying Fergus’ series, which she co-wrote with 6-times Olympic gold medal winning cyclist Sir Chris Hoy. Her tough but life-affirming young adult novel, ‘Joe All Alone’, has been made into a BAFTA-winning, Emmy- nominated BBC TV drama. Her novel for adult readers ‘The Queen of Bloody Everything’ was longlisted for the Guardian newspaper’s Not The Booker award.

We all know the weight of a great first line, but what else goes into a well-planned novel opening? Joanna took us through some of the greatest openings, showed us how they work, and helped us shape our own.

Joanna discussed introducing characters, backstory, setting and description. The Beginning is only the start – everything a writer puts in their opening pages must resonate for the reader throughout the rest of the novel.

24. January 2021 – ‘Red Pencil Sharpener – Sharpening Your Imagination’ with John Malone

This workshop with Australian poet John Malone explored the imagination, letting it run free, following where it took us and allowed us to be surprised, or dismayed, but always following it.

John has three educational titles to his credit, each on the writing of poetry and all with major publishers including Longman Cheshire, Wakefield Press. He has lots of Flash Fiction pieces published in hard copy form and online, a dozen or so short stories, and five books of poetry, two of which were self published. Over the decades he has published 100s of poems for children in leading literary publications including the School Magazine (Aust) and Cricket (USA). He has run many workshops at schools, writers’ groups, and for a number of tertiary groups and institutions.

John keeps a fun blog here

Workshop Terms and Conditions

Tickets
Online Tickets to SWC workshops are only available on www.sundaywritersclub.com. The price stated on the website, including any possible discounts, applies.
Tickets are only valid for the date they were booked for. Tickets are not transferable to another date and workshop.
Tickets are transferable. Please send an email to office@sundaywritersclub.com to inform us of the changes until the day before the workshop.

Cancellation of a SWC workshop
Should we need to cancel a SWC workshop, we will inform you as soon as possible. Your ticket will then be reimbursed.

Returns
Tickets can be cancelled for a full refund up to 14 days before the SWC workshop.
Unfortunately, in order to cover the workshop costs and pay the workshop instructor, tickets cannot be cancelled less than 14 days before the SWC workshop or for non-attendance.
You can email us at office@sundaywritersclub.com and transfer the ticket to a friend until the day before the workshop. Transfers on the same day as the workshop cannot be accepted.

What is included
Your ticket allows you to take part in the SWC workshop on the date for which you have purchased the ticket. The workshop will take place online, via the Zoom online meeting platform. Please ensure that you are able to stream and use the platform before the event. We will send you the link to the workshop in advance and ask that you log on in good time. You will be transferred to a waiting room and invited to join the meeting at the stated start time. You will also need a secure internet connection. When using Zoom, please make sure that you can use your device microphone and camera. You can find out more about Zoom here: https://zoom.us.

General information
Anything you write during a SWC workshop is, of course, yours to keep. The copyright remains with you.

Data Protection
When buying a ticket on www.sundaywritersclub.com, you are requested to provide personal data (name, address, telephone number, e-mail address). You agree to this storage of personal data collected during the ordering process. As a matter of principle, we will never pass it on to unauthorised third parties. For full details, please read our Datenschutz (Data Protection) page.

Vienna, January 2024.