Workshop international "How to train your pen - story crafting and word bending for novices"

How to train your pen - story crafting and word bending for novices
a
Creative Writing Grundtvig Workshop
imagined to take place in Lisbon between the 9th and 17th of November this year.

To narrate is to create, for living is just being lived

(Narrar é criar, pois viver é apenas ser vivido)

Fernando Pessoa

We believe this is true. We also think that imagination (the creative one) is the most important tool to do so. Than again, to invoke the power of imagination is just a phrase substituting a whole world that needs to be explained. Hope you agree that nobody simply sits down at a desk, "invokes the power of imagination" and writes. Our curiosity is what goes on before and behind all that jazz, and what makes all the magic happen. We despise tricks and techniques that "improve your writing skills" so that you can produce seducing stories that serve for the mere amusement of mases.

We don't promise secrets that will give birth to a future bestselling author (except you can guarantee us a percentage). Our sincere interest is elsewhere. We crave to understand the "creative" processes behind the act of writing so that we learn how to use them in a proper way in order to create, not entertain or make a living out of it.

There are many questions that intrigue us. Why do we write, why read, where does inspiration come from, how is someone creative and others not? Then, what to read so that we can write in this or that way, what to write about and when and for whom? How to write?

If you think in a similar manner, and you are puzzled with many (or more) questions like we are, then, we invite you to come to Lisbon for some days and together we explore all that stuff. Note that we don't have all answers. We hope that you can help, so we will encourage that everyone investigates in his or hers own depths. How good you write is up to you - where to search for all that goodness - we can assist.

Remember that "the train slows down", as Pessoa will notice, "it's the Cais do Sodré. I arrived to Lisbon, but not to a conclusion". So don't expect miracles. Expect to leave with nothing but Lisbon in your heart. And a load of questions that (hopefully) will bring about to inspire creative outcomes that will prove you are a person, not a typing machine.

Still not completely discouraged? If you are really interested and fancy a more formal description, check the link below if you. There you can find the application as well.

You have time to read all this and to submit the application until 20th of September. We will make the selection based mostly on person's motivations behind their will to participate.

Call for Participants
Learner Application Form