Faber & Faber

With Erica Wagner and Marcel Theroux

Friday 19 to Sunday 21 March 2010

Bloomsbury House
74-77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA

Course cost: £375

This course will address the difficult business of starting to write. It will look at strategies to overcome the fear of the blank page, and ways to silence — initially — the paralysing voice of the internal critic. Writing well means striking a paradoxical balance between instinct and judgment. The exercises on this course will try to address both aspects: the spontaneous, free, instinctive impulse towards self-expression; and the complementary need for an understanding of structure and the goals of story-telling. It will also address what is often a central problem for the beginning -- and indeed the established – writer: discipline. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, author Nora Roberts – who writes a novel every three months and earns $60 million a year – said she had one rule of writing: "ass in the chair". Whatever kind of book you want to write, be assured that you too can learn to apply this rule to beneficial effect!

The aim of this course is not to equip participants with a road-map for writing well, but to sharpen their innate sense of how a story works and where the ideas for stories come from – and to demonstrate that it is only through working at writing that the stories will begin to flow. It will look at the creative process as a series of feelings about the work and suggest that even the low-points — distraction, hopelessness, stuckness — can provide invaluable assistance towards the final goal of FINISHING!

The Course Includes:

•    3 days intensive tuition
•    Complimentary Moleskine® Notebook
•    Daily artisan lunch
•    Regular coffee breaks
•    Handy course pack including local hotel recommendations
•    Special discount off Faber books purchased at www.faber.co.uk

About the tutors

Erica Wagner (www.ericawagner.co.uk) was born in New York City. She is the author of Gravity: Stories (Granta), Ariel’s Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the Story of ‘Birthday Letters’ (Faber) and Seizure (Faber). She lives in London where she is the Literary Editor of The Times.

Marcel Theroux is the author of three previous novels, A Blow to the Heart, A Stranger in the Earth, and The Paperchase, winner of the 2002 Somerset Maugham Award. He lives in London.

About Faber

Faber and Faber is the last of the great independent publishing houses in London. We were established in 1929 by Geoffrey Faber and our first editor was T. S. Eliot. Among our list of authors we are proud to publish five Booker Prize winners and eleven Nobel Laureates. We are particularly well-known for our unrivalled list of modern poets and playwrights, as well as for publishing writers of prize-winning fiction and general non-fiction.

To make a booking:

Contact Patrick on either patrickk@faber.co.uk or tel. +44 (0) 207 927 3822

Alternatively, write to:
Patrick Keogh
Faber and Faber Ltd
74-77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA

Places are strictly limited, so book early to avoid disappointment.