The Writing Squad

Squad 10 Minigoals
2022-03-07 18:00 - 19:30 UTC | Online
Mini goals session for squad 10 – email billie@writingsquad.com for the link.

Poets Mini Goals
2022-03-10 17:30 - 19:00, 2022-03-24 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Mini goals session for poets. Email billie@writingsquad.com for the link.

Precision Journalism
2022-03-10 19:30 - 21:00 | Online
With Gabriel Evans
This workshop will examine how the media uses sensationalism to garner interest and give alternative ways to make newswriting engaging.
What is sensationalism, and why does the media (still) love it?
How does sensationalism affect our lives?
How can we write news articles and other non-fiction without sensationalism?
By the end of the workshop, you’ll not only have a more acute awareness of sensationalism in the media, but also be able to recognise it in your own writing and replace it with more accurate alternatives that are just as engaging (and clickable.)

Writing the Funny Stuff with Jeremy Dyson
2022-03-12 11:00 - 16:00 | Leeds
SQUAD 10 – if you are in Squad 1-9 and want to be added to the waiting list, please email billie@writingsquad.com
We will explore how you source material and then work on and refine it into scripts for TV, radio or sketch shows. Jeremy will also share examples from the real and not so real world of comedy and you’ll get a chance to write too.

Script Mini Goals
2022-03-14 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Mini goals session for scriptwriters. Email billie@writingsquad.com for the link.

Prose Mini Goals
2022-03-17 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Mini goals session for prose writers. Email billie@writingsquad.com for the link.

SFF Mini Goals
2022-03-21 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Mini goals session for sci-fi and fantasy writers. Email billie@writingsquad.com for the link.

Film in a Weekend
2022-03-26 11:00 - 2022-03-27 16:00
SHEFFIELD, VENUE TBC. SQUAD 10.
Come and make a film in a weekend with Ben Wilkinson and Matt Rowan Maw. We meet on the Saturday morning, talk about film and film production, write a script over lunch, film in the afternoon and Sunday morning, edit Sunday morning and load the finished film onto Vimeo on Sunday evening.
You will be able to have a go at everything, or specialise, but basically if we don’t write, act, shoot and edit it, no-one else will!
Previous films we have made in a weekend include XXX?, Swipe Wrong, The Character, How To Succeed at Rada Auditions (Guaranteed) and of course, unfortunately, Balaclava Man.
THIS IS A SQUAD 10 WORKSHOP, if you are a grad and want a place should there be any available please don’t sign up here, contact billie@writingsquad.com to go on the waiting list.
We expect demand to be high so please make sure before signing up that you can make it.
Matt and Ben are Deranged Industries.
Note: This workshop is only open to members of the Writing Squad, and not to the general public.

Script Mini Goals
2022-03-28 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Mini goals session for script writers. Email billie@writingsquad.com for the link.

Poets Mini Goals
2022-04-21 17:30 - 19:00, 2022-05-05 17:30 - 19:00, 2022-05-19 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Mini goals session – setting goals and updating each other on writing news and cultural highlights. Email billie@writingsquad.com for Zoom details.

Forming Poems with Lydia Allison
2022-04-21 19:30 - 21:00 | Online
Is rhythm and metre something we should consider in the first stages or only when editing? Do rhythm and sound carry their own kind of meaning? How can we use both to make our work more effective?
Using our favourite poems and songs we will examine the rules to learn their magic then write exploring how to consciously and effectively to break them.

Material and Materials
2022-04-23 11:00 - 16:00 | Leeds
A workshop in bookmaking, writing and play with Stevie Ronnie. We will make books and explore bookbinding techniques and formats with a range of materials. We’ll be writing too, using words as a material in the bookmaking process. The second half of the workshop will be a more open creative play session where you’ll be given a wide range of tools and materials and invited to explore the ideas and techniques you’ve learned.

Script Mini Goals
2022-04-25 17:30 - 19:00, 2022-05-09 17:30 - 19:00, 2022-05-23 17:30 - 19:00 | Online

Awesome Script: The Power of the Dog
2022-04-27 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Writers reading, led by Matt and Emma. Discussion of the script for The Power of the Dog.

An Evening with Kathryn Williams
2022-04-28 20:00 - 21:30 | Online
A chance to talk songs and songwriting with Kathryn Williams. How do you start? How do you match lyric to music and tune to words? How do you collaborate?
You’ll take away an insight into a songwriter’s practise and some tricks and techniques for starting, developing and finishing songs.

Writing Pain with Sarah Fletcher
2022-04-30 11:00 - 16:00 | Manchester, Manchester
Pain can be daunting and abstract, but it is an unavoidable fact of life. In this workshop, we will explore various ways we can write pain. Elaine Scarry writes that pain “does not simply resist language but actively destroys it”. As writers, we rebuild language where there is none to be found.
We will consider the creative possibilities of exploring pain and physicality in writing. You’ll leave with new vocabularies and ways of thinking about sensation, and will have the start of something they might like to expand. This workshop is suitable for both poets and prose writers.

Squad 10 Mini Goals
2022-05-02 18:00 - 19:30 | Online

Forming Poems 3
2022-05-05 19:30 - 21:00 | Online

What if we didn't start with words?
2022-05-07 11:00 - 16:00 | Leeds
In this workshop we’re going to draw / make design sets / costumes / locations… and then we’ll write for them.

I’ve been thinking about staging and the power of set design. Why is it that writers don’t often get to work with set designers early in a development process? What does thinking about image rather than words unlock for storytellers / writers? Then I saw a video about Taika Waititi’s (awesome writer/director, check him out) creative process. There he talked about how he starts his film scripts. He thinks about cool images / events for the beginning and start of a story, and then he writes to link them up. Do you do this? I don’t do this. I never do this. I think it could be interesting to try doing this. It could be so fun to try this! To play with the graphic and the look of things and see what that inspires. To think about a set/costumes and then imagine a story that comes from there? So, I thought, why not experiment with all of that?

Awesome Prose: My Name is Why
2022-05-10 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
One of the squad’s 3 Awesome Reading groups – designed to think about how we can read as writers.
If you want to join us, then here’s what you need to know:
We will be reading My Name is Why by Lemn Sissay. The text can be bought here.
NB: Because of the different types of documents included in the book, there have been problems reported with the legibility of the Kindle version, so buying/borrowing a paper version is strongly recommended.
At the age of seventeen, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth.
This is Lemn’s story: a story of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and triumph.
Sissay reflects on his childhood, self-expression and Britishness, and in doing so explores the institutional care system, race, family and the meaning of home. Written with all the lyricism and power you would expect from one of the nation’s best-loved poets, this moving, frank and timely memoir is the result of a life spent asking questions, and a celebration of the redemptive power of creativity.

Prose Mini Goals
2022-05-12 17:30 - 19:00 | Online

Writing the Archive
2022-05-14 11:00 - 16:00 | Sheffield
Why should we make art from the archive? Why should we care? How can creativity serve history and vice versa? How do we write into the gaps left by history? What happens when artefacts are removed from their cultural contexts and audiences? Where does the line between poetry, history and myth sit? How does all this sit with our understanding of national memory and education?
We will be writing from research exercises based on the archival sources within the gallery. The participants will identify areas of silenced or marginalised narratives within the archive and creatively respond to them. The morning will be spent utilising writing techniques that best problematise the language of the archive, that help give voice to silenced narratives. The afternoon will be spent putting these techniques into practice along with mixed-media approaches to archive work.

SFF Mini Goals
2022-05-16 18:00 - 19:30 | Online

Writing in Glass
2022-05-21 11:00 - 16:00 | Sunderland
Watch live glass making demonstrations, have a walk round the exhibitions and write in a ‘floating’ pod.
We will observe the glassmaking process, watching expert glass demonstrations such as flameworking, glass blowing and lathe techniques. We’ll have a walk through the exhibitions on display and have a stroll by Sunderland’s former shipyard. We’ll do lots of talking and even do some writing in the Glass Centre’s pod, a unique ‘floating’ event space overlooking the Wear.
We’ll talk about the glass-making process. And we might not have the language or the specific syntax to talk about the techniques or operations being used, but that’s the point. We might not even talk; we might just gesture in imitation of a glass blower, or point, or draw. What happens when words stop? And how do we use language, textually and visually to describe a man blowing on a stick? How does our writing reflect, refract and obscure the world around us? And finally, how do we work transparency and/or opacity into our writing?
You might have no idea about glass, be an inveterate watcher of Blown Away, or just appreciate a good Pyrex casserole. But by the end of the workshop you’ll walk away having seen a live glass blowing demonstration! And maybe a better understanding of your relationship to glass, whether it’s a love it or leave it situ. You’ll maybe draw some parallels in your own writing to the glass-making process. You might even get to hear about an exciting, upcoming Squad glass project…

Politics and Prose with Preti Taneja
2022-05-28 11:00 - 16:00 | Newcastle, Newcastle
How to work with real life laws, evidence and witness testimony in all your many forms.
In this workshop we will look at the ethics, politics and aesthetics of working with real life situations and research evidence, including legal documents, and gathering witness testimony, as you write.
We will talk about situations where we have gathered witness testimony for our research, how to handle sensitive material and respect interviewees; we will share and build towards best practice when your work includes other’s real stories or identifiable lives especially friends and family. We may discuss how we can engage with legal documents that inform our world-building and how we can go about this in a fictionalised way.
You will leave the workshop with an appreciation of the value of research and the wealth of real documents and stories that exist for writers to draw in formally inventive ways. You will learn how to bring the politics into the prose with style and confidence.
