Deep Summer - A Sensory Experience: August Writing Challenge
Plus four substack newsletters I recommend and book club news
August Writing Challenge Announcement
This week I finished my nature memoir, The Ghost Lake, and moved into the brief but intense self editing phase before I let it go to the editor next week and it ceases to be a book that exists entirely inside my head, and becomes something other people will read. Terrifying. The Ghost Lake has been a beautiful writing experience. But I’m ready to move forward to the next stage now, and it feels like a time in my life to make changes to my writing and working habits.
We have reached the time of year when the fields around the village start to tip towards the golden brown of deep summer. Have you walked among the wheat and let the stems tickle your palms? Have you crushed a handful of pineapple weed and inhaled the scent of summer? Have you heard the way the bird song changes now, becomes less about attracting mates and more about communicating with fledgelings, partners, getting the business of rearing young done? Have you watched the sun rise over the sea and felt the heat of a star so far away, touching your skin? Have you tasted the first fresh sluice of juice from a fresh strawberry, or orange, tasted summer in the glass of wine made from grapes grown on a sunny hillside far away? Then you might be interested in the August Writing Challenge - Deep Summer - A Sensory Experience.
Those of you who have worked with me in workshops, courses, in mentoring, through Spelt, through my work with York uni Centre for Life Long Learning, will know that the writing community, especially those coming to it from non traditional routes, are at the heart of what I do as a facilitator. In September I shall be moving towards a subscription service on substack, and I hope to carry that community with me to this new (to me) exciting platform. Before I do, I want to spend a month celebrating the summer experience with the Notes from the Margin followers (almost 500 now, thank you!) and will be running the August Writing Challenge right here on substack, for free. You don’t need to do anything if you’re already a subscriber, the prompts for the challenge and notes and downloadable resources will be within my normal Notes form the Margin newsletter, but please do recommend to anyone who might enjoy it!
Each week we’ll look at a different sensory experience of the summer, you’ll be encourage to use the downloadable journalling exercises to connect with this precious, deep time of year, and we’ll look at poetry and prose that does the same. You work at your own pace. You’ll be provided with two writing prompts a week too, to super charge your own creative writing practice. The writing challenge begins on 3rd August 2023. I hope you’ll join me for a month of creativity! I see this as a kind of ‘taster’ for what will be coming up as part of the subscription service, which has at its heart no pressure creative practice encouragement, community and practical help with the nuts and bolts of the creative life - submissions, time mangement etc. More about this in another post.
Book Club News
Our Books from the Margin book choice for July is Katie Hale’s White Ghosts. Come and join me for an hour of book chat as we discuss and dissect this brilliant collection of poems. You’ll get a discount code for The Poetry Pharmacy when you do. Book chat is on the 16th July 10-11 am UK time. You don’t need to have read the book, just come along and chat book love with us. It’s a pay what you can event.
Five Substack Newsletters I Recommend
Last but not least, here are four substack newsletters I have been enjoying this week, that I recommend you check out.
The Profile: Fascinating insight into successful people and the stories behind them.
Beyond - intimate interviews with interesting people
The Time Travel Kitchen - recipes from the past
The Liminality Journal - writing on resistance
Until next time
x
Thank you, Wendy!