INSPIRE AN ANTHOLOGY AN CLCL INSPIRE A CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE CULTURE AND LEARNING (CLCL) AN ANTHOLOGY ANTHOLOGY EXCITING WAYS OF TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING AN ANTHOLOGY AN Inspire: Exciting Ways of Teaching Creative Writing is an innovative anthology written by a wide spectrum of creative teachers who have a wealth of diverse experience. The focus here is on communicating how to teach creative writing in imaginative, practical and socially just ways. There is a CREATIVE particular emphasis upon helping people of all ages and WRITING backgrounds write stories, poems, plays and creative non- EDUCATORS fiction, including memoir and autobiography. Here you’ll learn many ways of teaching creative writing, including: • How to decolonise creative-writing workshops EXCITING WAYS OF TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING CREATIVE TEACHING OF WAYS EXCITING • How to use social media to engage teen writers • How to use therapeutic writing to cope with lockdown and bereavement • How to help students get creative in their essay writing INSPIRE • How to seek inspiration in nature and landscapes Inspire is essential reading for teachers, writers, academics EXCITING and anyone who values creativity. WAYS OF TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING CLCL A CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE CULTURE Editors: AND LEARNING (CLCL) Emma Brankin, ANTHOLOGY Francis Gilbert and Carinya Sharples In association with the MA in Creative Writing and Education, Goldsmiths INSPIRE EXCITING WAYS OF TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING EDITED BY EMMA BRANKIN, FRANCIS GILBERT AND CARINYA SHARPLES Inspire All rights reserved. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of the original material written by the named authors is prohibited: these sections of the book may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher. Copyright © Gold Publishing British Library Cataloguing-in-Publications Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 1st Edition ISBN: 978-1-913694-04-3 Acknowledgments Thanks to everyone who assisted with the making of this anthology, including all relevant people at NAWE, the staff at the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths, and the students on the MA in Creative Writing and Education. A special mention should go to the editors Emma Brankin and Carinya Sharples who worked so hard on this book in so many ways; they have our most sincere thanks. Dr. Francis Gilbert, November 2020. 2 Exciting Ways of Teaching Creative Writing DEDICATION To all creative writing educators devoted to pursuing lives well led. In memory of Francis Gilbert’s colleague and friend David Parry, who was a marvellously creative English and Drama teacher, as well as a good friend. In memory of Suzanne Cleminshaw, the marvellous author of The Great Ideas and a good friend of Francis’s too! 3 Inspire Contents DEDICATION .......................................................................3 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................... 6 Francis Gilbert.................................................................................. 6 PROLOGUE ............................................................................. 12 BEYOND “HARPOONS AND DINGHIES” ........................................ 14 Gaar Adams ................................................................................... 14 TAKING UP SPACE ................................................................... 23 Lexi Allen ....................................................................................... 23 SOCIAL STORIES: ..................................................................... 33 Emma Brankin ............................................................................... 33 YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIKE ME: .................................................. 46 Sara Carroll .................................................................................... 46 SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL VISITS: ..................................................... 60 Camilla Chester .............................................................................. 60 FAMILY HISTORY: FACT OR FICTION? .......................................... 67 Janet Dean ..................................................................................... 67 LIFTING THE LAYERS: ................................................................ 82 Angela France ................................................................................ 82 HOW TO READ A POETRY CLASS: ............................................... 94 Tjawangwa Dema .......................................................................... 94 THE HAUNTED HOUSE: ........................................................... 107 Francis Gilbert.............................................................................. 107 CREATIVE ESSAYING: .............................................................. 126 Kirsty Gunn & Gail Low ................................................................ 126 VENETIAN WHISPERS ............................................................. 135 Geoffrey Heptonstall ................................................................... 135 CATCHING THE LIGHT ............................................................. 139 Tamar Hodes ............................................................................... 139 The First Day ................................................................................ 142 Writing Stories with Twists in their Tales ................................... 145 COFFEE BEASTLY ................................................................... 150 Aisha Johnson .............................................................................. 150 WORKSHOP PROMPTS: .......................................................... 155 Mark Kirkbride ............................................................................. 155 WILD WRITING: .................................................................... 164 Helen Moore ................................................................................ 164 VOICES DURING QUARANTINE: ................................................ 173 Juwairiah Mussa .......................................................................... 173 4 Exciting Ways of Teaching Creative Writing WE ALL HAVE TALENT ............................................................ 184 Neil Nixon .................................................................................... 184 THE REALITY OF FANTASY: ...................................................... 192 Matilda Rostant ........................................................................... 192 NOTES FROM THE TICKLE TRUNK: ............................................. 203 Tanya Royer ................................................................................. 203 WRITING FROM ‘THE THIRD SPACE’ ......................................... 217 Carinya Sharples .......................................................................... 217 EXPERIMENTAL WRITING PROMPTS ........................................... 228 Jake Smith .................................................................................... 228 WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW: ..................................................... 247 Matthew Tett............................................................................... 247 WHERE ANGELS WRESTLE BEST: .............................................. 253 Patrick TOLAND ........................................................................... 253 FORBIDDEN .......................................................................... 267 Gabriel Troiano ............................................................................ 267 THAT SHAKESPE-HEREAN RAG: ................................................ 270 Stephen Wade ............................................................................. 270 NO WRITER IS AN ISLAND ....................................................... 278 James Ward ................................................................................. 278 ABOUT THE AUTHORS ............................................................ 292 5 Inspire INTRODUCTION FRANCIS GILBERT Welcome to this inspiring anthology! Here you will find a series of essays, creative responses and meditations on the teaching of creative writing – and much else besides. The aim is to inspire the reader to write imaginatively, and to learn more about creative writing and how to teach it. The editors of this anthology (myself, Emma Brankin and Carinya Sharples) are practising creative writers and teachers of this familiar but possibly contentious subject. Creative writing is seen as a contentious subject for lots of different reasons: in academia because it’s viewed as lacking rigour, in schools because it might facilitate unsavoury views and images, in society as a whole because it’s perceived as a soft subject. Between us we have a great deal of experience of trying to impart our enthusiasm for reading and writing poetry, fiction, drama and creative non-fiction in diverse settings. We first discussed devising such an anthology in order to showcase some of the great work that the postgraduate students on the MA in Creative Writing and Education at Goldsmiths have done as part of this course during the 2019- 2020 session. Some of their work is