SFF Minigoals
2023-07-31 18:00 - 19:30 UTC
Online SFF (Science Fiction/Fantasy) minigoals session for members of The Writing Squad. This event takes place every 4 weeks.
Topic: SFF Minigoals
Time: Jul 31, 2023 06:00 PM
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83468564155?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 834 6856 4155
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Squad 11 Minigoals
2023-08-07 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
Exclusively for Squad 11.
Minigoals are a relaxed, informal way to check in about your writing, share cultural highlights and support one another’s progress. This monthly meeting is exclusively for Squad 11 members. If you haven’t received your invitation, contact libby@writingsquad.com.

Squad Dramatist Forum
2023-08-17 19:30 - 21:00 | Zoom
Open to all Squads.
A forum for Writing Squad dramatists to create a playwrights’ plan of action with Billie and Emma.
Since Autumn 2022, Emma and Billie have been been speaking to a range of new-writing theatres across the country. They’ve used these conversations to create a picture of where buildings are at when it comes to commissioning, developing and producing new work. This session will be an open forum for Squad dramatists – Emma and Billie will present their findings and proposals, and together we’ll shape a plan of action. It’s a space for us to pool our knowledge, discuss what we need and want as playwrights and how we can develop realistic, meaningful relationships with venues across the North and beyond.
THURSDAY 17 AUGUST, ZOOM. MORE DETAILS AND SIGN UP HERE.

Rebel Geese & Cute Rats: Writing Urban Nature Workshop
2023-08-31 19:30 - 21:00
Open to Squad grads. If you are in Squad 11 and would like to join, email libby@writingsquad.com.
An uplifting workshop with Liz Gibson exploring urban nature’s resilience, quirkiness and comfort. Ready to declare your love for pigeons, or make peace with the seagull who stole your lunch? Liz Gibson will lead this session, using writing exercises to explore how we can find joy in creatures which are often looked down on. How can we relate to city creatures through ideas of resilience, feeling out of place but wanting to thrive or be seen?
THURSDAY 31 AUGUST, ZOOM. MORE DETAILS AND SIGN UP HERE.

Squad 11 Minigoals
2023-09-11 19:00 - 20:30, 2023-10-09 19:00 - 20:30, 2023-11-13 19:00 - 20:30, 2023-12-11 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
Minigoals are a relaxed, informal way to check in about your writing, share cultural highlights and support one another’s progress. This monthly Zoom meeting is exclusively for Squad 11 members. If you haven’t received the link, contact libby@writingsquad.com.

The Fire of the Unconscious with Jason Allen-Paisant: Workshop
2023-09-23 11:00 - 16:00 | Leeds
Join award-winning poet, scholar and writer Jason Allen-Paisant in exploring surprise, intrigue and the unconscious through poetry.

This workshop is exclusively for graduate members of The Writing Squad. If you are in Squad 11 and would like to join the waiting list, email libby@writingsquad.com.
Discover the benefits and rewards of creating surprise in our poetry; of surprising one’s reader and oneself. We’ll be talking associative leaps and swerves, the power of juxtaposition, and about disrupting the familiar.
We’ll look at poems that interrogate the assumed universality of the lyric voice. All in all, what we’ll be looking at are ways of firing up the unconscious and thereby creating excitement and intrigue in our poetry. We will look at work by poets as varied as Padraig Regan, Ilya Kaminsky, Jill Bialosky, and Ada Limón.

Writing the Archive 2: Noticing the Unnoticed
2024-09-21 11:00 - 17:00 | Manchester Poetry Library
How do we create in the wake of the archive? In this workshop, we will explore ways of handling, writing and responding to the archive.

Signup details in Squad newsletter – or email libby@writingsquad.com.

A Viaduct and Two Rivers with Steve Dearden
2024-09-28 11:00 - 17:00
Helen Clapcott paints Stockport past, present, future and imagined, all in the same frame, focussing on a square mile in the town centre.
This workshop takes place in Stockport Art Gallery on the opening day of her first major retrospective.
Led by Steve Dearden, we’ll go for a walk before returning to the gallery to use Helen’s paintings and drawings as starting points to write through the prism of place, crunching perspectives and time in our writing, whatever form you are using.
Signup details in Squad newsletter – or email libby@writingsquad.com.

Writing Audio Drama with Georgia Affonso
2024-10-12 11:00 - 16:00 | Hilton York
In this workshop we will be exploring what the format of audio-drama offers us as storytellers. We will focus on the sound worlds of ourselves and our characters. How does sound operate in our lives? How do we control, react, create or avoid it? We will also explore the voice, and how we can create distinctive characters through their dialogue. Lorna Newman (Producer, BBC Studios Audio Drama North) will also share her expertise on pitching and the commissioning process so bring your questions!This workshop is for anyone who is curious about audio-drama – whether you’ve already got a polished script or are looking for where to start.
Signup details in Squad newsletter – or email libby@writingsquad.com.

Squad Maxi Goals
2024-10-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Zoom
A chance to set big (but achievable!) longer-term goals for your creative work with fellow Squaddies.
We have had minigoals for some time, and we have definitely kept those goals mini! But in feedback you’ve told us that you’d like an opportunity to set some big goals – something you want to achieve over the next six months or a year!
So this is it! Same format as minis – everyone gets a chance to talk about where they’re at and tell us what their goal is. We’ll have another meeting in six months time to check in and see how we’re all doing.
Signup details in Squad newsletter – or email libby@writingsquad.com.

Writing from Dreams with Sarah Fletcher
2024-10-19 11:00 - 16:00
A session with poet Sarah Fletcher delving into the obscured world of dreams. Are you out like a light? Dead to the world? More like a rock, a log, or a baby? The language we use around sleep, dreams, and bedtime is rich with creative possibilities. Let’s delve together into this obscured world, drawing inspiration from a range of poets, from Williams Wordsworth to Sharon Olds to Lucille Clifton.
Signup details in Squad newsletter – or email libby@writingsquad.com.

Neurodivergent Writers Online Open Discussion
2024-11-07 19:30 - 21:00 | Zoom
This online discussion is a chance for Neurodivergent Squad members to connect with each other and share their experience.
Signup details in Squad newsletter – or email libby@writingsquad.com.

Keeping it Short with David Gaffney
2024-11-09 11:00 - 16:00 | Manchester, Manchester
Learn how to reduce ideas to an ultra-short format; how to condense, yet keep your story effective, powerful and easy to understand.
Can you tell a story in fewer than 500 words? David Gaffney thinks you can, and in this workshop you will learn how to reduce ideas to an ultra-short format, how to condense, yet keep your story effective, powerful and easy to understand, how to manage character, description, point of view and dialogue in the ultra short story, and how to reduce a thousand words to 150 without losing a thing. Full of practical, fun exercises, this session will leave you wondering why anything has to be longer than a side of A4.
Sign up from the Squad newsletter, or email Libby: libby@writingsquad.com.

Squad 11 Minigoals
2024-11-11 19:30 - 21:00 | Zoom
Minigoals is an informal space to discuss your writing with your peers, set achievable goals and motivate each other. This is exclusively for Squad 11. For the Zoom link, email libby@writingsquad.com.

Genre Minigoals
2024-11-13 18:00 - 19:30, 2024-12-11 18:00 - 19:30, 2025-01-08 18:30 - 20:00 | Zoom
Minigoals is an informal space to discuss your writing with your peers, set achievable goals and motivate each other. Genre minigoals is for Squad members writing in any genre (e.g. sci-fi, fantasy, romance…). For the link, email libby@writingsquad.com.

Squad 11 Minigoals
2024-12-09 19:30 - 21:00

Broken Sleep Books December 2025 Launch
2026-01-02 20:00 | Online
Broken Sleep December 2025 releases, with readings from:
Stuart McPherson (reading from The Aureate Trophies of Profit & Loss)
Liza Costello (reading from None of Us Will Be Okay)
Patrick Davidson Roberts (reading from Divided Tongues)
Katie Hale (reading from Slipped Skin)
Ricky Monahan Brown (reading from Drawer of Letters)
Róisín Ní Neachtain (reading from I, Bird)
Eleni Philippou (reading from Nifitsa)
All books available to buy at brokensleepbooks.com
Minimum payment of £1. For free tickets email: aaron@brokensleepbooks.com

SASSY SELECTS 'Funny Valentines' with Dilettante
2026-02-10 19:00 - 22:30
Join us at The Libra for Sassy Selects (Valentine’s Version).
Sassy Selects is your chance to discover three of London’s most exciting up-and-coming artists and connect with fellow music lovers in a relaxed setting, and this time we have a theme!
Grab a drink, kick back and enjoy an evening of great tunes and good old fashioned giggles at one of Camden’s best grassroots venues, The Libra Theatre Cafe. Line-up includes Sansha, Dom Glynn and Dilettante.
