mentoring

Do you want to develop your writing?
Are you working on a specific project?
Are you prepared to commit some time?
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This is a opportunity for writers in Dumfries and Galloway who are keen to progress their work, willing to engage with it objectively and open to supportive feedback.

DGAA’s Virtual Writer in Residence, Jules Horne, will be offering individual mentoring to a number of writers who are committed to developing their writing over the next year.

Writers at any stage can apply. Assignments, deadlines and type of feedback will be agreed with each writer, depending on personal writing aspirations. What’s important is a commitment to your craft, and an open mind. You'll also need to be able to send e-mail attachments.

To apply:

Send a sample of your writing (no more than 2,000 words of prose, 6 poems - up to 40 lines each, 8pp of drama), with a paragraph each on

o your writing goals and what you’d like to achieve in nine months’ time
o your writing background, and any publications or productions
o how you think your writing would benefit from mentoring
o why this form of mentoring would be useful to you.

All applications should be sent to arrive by Friday 20th May to:

Jules Horne, Dumfries and Galloway Arts Association, Gracefield Arts Centre, 28 Edinburgh Road, DUMFRIES, DG1 1JG

or as Word files to jules_horne@yahoo.co.uk.

For more information, ring 01387 253383 or email.

blogging workshop

The Basics of Blogging
or
How to set up a simple website in under an hour

Thursday 19th May 2-4pm, Wigtown Library

NB places are limited - please ring Andy on 01387 253383 to book

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What can blogging do for you? Take a look here.

A blog (short for weblog) is basically a very simple website. Most blogs are free to set up, and don’t need any special software. People use them for many different purposes, including online diaries, journalism, writing showcases, political activism and group collaborations.

This workshop will take you through the basics of blogging, from setting up a free account, to posting some writing on the internet.

At the end of the workshop, you’ll have

opened a free blog account with www.blogger.com
posted some of work on the internet
practised creative formatting

Afterwards, you’ll be able to change your website at any time via the internet.

What you’ll need:

an email address
basic Word skills (including copying and pasting text)
basic internet surfing skills

Please bring to the workshop:
o your email address
o five poems or pieces of prose. These should either be brought on a floppy disk or USB flash drive, or sent as an email attachment to Jules two days before the workshop
o ideas for your website address. This will have the format http://www.yourname.blogspot.com/. Have a few alternatives in mind, in case your name is already taken.

For more information, ring 01387 253383 or email Jules.

hark! the herald...

Recent snippet from Sunday Herald:

'Three cheers for ever-innovative Dumfries and Galloway, which has appointed the nation's first virtual writer in residence, Jules Horne. Her plans include online writing resources, a mentoring scheme to assist writers and workshops experimenting with new media. To start the ball rolling, Ms Horne - who writes plays and short stories - is embarking on a series of roadshows, when she will read from her own word and discuss the residency...'

(Sadly, the sessions at Dumfries Crichton Campus, Castle Douglas, Newton Stewart, Lockerbie and Lochthorn have now been and gone. But fear not - you can still email.)

frequently asked questions

What’s a ‘virtual writer’ anyway?

It does sound a little strange – could it be a cunning ploy to save money on REAL writers? It's not that sinister. The virtual residency is a way of using IT to reach parts other writers in residence can’t easily reach. D&G is a huge region; feedback from writers has shown that they often find it hard to attend events. So we’re trying to address that by harnessing the power of IT.

What sort of thing will you be doing?

First off, we’re setting up a mentoring scheme for writers who want to move on to another level. Groups can provide a certain amount of support and enjoyable social contact, but individual writers do have very different needs, aspirations, and interests. So a number of writers who are committed to progressing their work over the next year will be offered individual mentoring (see other sheet). This will take the form of email and other feedback in line with agreed personal goals.

We’re also working with the council library service on a website that will act as a showcase and resource for the region’s writers. There will be links to stimulus material and worksheets for groups and individual writers, as well as links to other sites that offer online communities, feedback, and publishing information. Into summer we’ll be adding bulletin boards that will act as online meeting points for writers wanting to exchange material for feedback.

Personal or group websites are another obvious avenue. This used to be expensive and difficult – something only a writer with strong geek tendencies would attempt! But with the arrival of blogging, website building has become very simple and (even better) free. Blogs have many uses; one of these - which many writers are now exploiting - is as an online showcase for their work. Writers’ groups might also like to consider a simple website showing their contact info. I’ll be running a few blogging workshops, and also putting instructions online that anyone can use.

One area we’re exploring down the line is online conferencing using internet chat. This is already being done by some of the universities (eg Manchester) which offer e-learning writers’ courses - the idea is you can log in from wherever you are, and take part in an online seminar with a visiting writer (who could also be anywhere at all). We’re planning to pilot this system here, and hoping D&G’s ever-intrepid writers will join in.

Let’s not forget also that the new media are bringing a whole wave of innovation, including forms such as kinetic poetry and hyperfiction, or the growth of flash fiction and blog-based or epistolary fiction using emails. We'll be keeping you up to date with digital writing experiments, and are hoping to try some of them out.

Is this approach new?

No - some universities and online writing sites are trying out similar ways of working. But it's the first time the SAC has funded this kind of post. So we’re hoping that writers in D&G will join in with a measure of pioneering spirit, feed back on what they feel works best, and being part of developing something that is being watched with interest in other parts of Scotland (to quote – unashamedly - the Sunday Herald: three cheers for the ever-innovative Dumfries and Galloway…)

If you’d like to know more, ring 01387 253383 or email the virtual writer in residence.