Last weekend I did a short course in Freelance Writing at West Dean College. The college is set in historic West Dean House in Sussex, former home of Edward James, poet, artist, designer and patron of the Surrealist Movement. The main building is a beautiful Jacobean Manor House situated in over 6000 acres of beautiful countryside. There are some magnificent rooms inside the main house, and parts of it reminded me of my old school - especially the main staircase with its dark panelled walls, the great hall with a huge fireplace, and there was even a galleried landing.
The walls were covered with many examples of fine tapestries and other wonderful examples of many sorts of art - West Dean Tapestry Studio is one of the only professional tapestry studios in the UK. It's worth looking on their website for info on the history of the house, also some good info on Wikipedia.
The college offers many courses, all focussed on creative arts - everything from metal work, clock making, ceramics, furniture, to the fine arts, musical instrument making, sculpture, needlework, calligraphy, and many writing courses. You can do everything from a Master's Degree to a one day course in drawing.
So why did I choose a freelance Writing course? Yes, I have written and published over a dozen articles in UK sailing magazines since late 2012, but I would like to write for different magazines on different things. I hoped that the course would give me some hints and tips on how to present my articles to editors and write a good 'pitch'. The course started at 6.45 on Friday, where all students enrolled on one of the seven short courses gathered in the bar area. We didn't wear badges, so you didn't know who else was on your course. I had a drink with two ladies on a blacksmith course, and someone else making jewellery, and we tried to guess which other people in the bar might be on our different courses. The woman with a bohemian scarf wound around her scary straggly dreadlocked hair wearing a patchwork skirt, rainbow socks and clogs - well, she could have been doing anything, from landscape gardening to poetry......
Our tutor for the freelance writing was Joanna Moorhead. She writes several times a week for the Guardian, often in their weekend 'family' section, plus other magazines. She writes about women's issues, family topics, health, feminist issues etc. She has a piece coming out this weekend about the mother of a guy in Philadelphia who massacred classmates at a school. She has apparently written it from the mother's viewpoint and how she has suffered and been ostracised by the local community. So I'm looking forward to reading that. Joanna and I had a previous connection - when my daughter Jess lived in Balham about ten years ago, she used to babysit in the evenings for Joanna's four daughters, and she also used to go round their house after work and make them tea, help with homework etc, while Joanna locked herself away in her office in the attic room. I had previously read some of her articles that she had written in Good Housekeeping, etc so I was aware of who she was.
There were 11 of us in the class, two males, the rest women. A couple were much younger than me, the rest around the same age. Some working, most retired. A few had made some attempt to have work published, but most were there because they didn't know where to start. The course consisted mostly of informal teaching, lots of discussion with contributions from the class, and a handout given at the end. There were lots of opportunities to ask questions, and we gave each other lots of feedback. Most of the others looked at me as some sort of expert, having already had articles published, and must have wondered what I was doing there! One of the ladies also had a sailing yacht, so she asked me to look critically at her blog, and she asked to read copies of my articles, which was sweet of her.
I thoroughly enjoyed the course, although I thought the pace was rather slow. It was lovely to meet some new, interesting people, and I certainly learnt more about the art of freelance writing.
The walls were covered with many examples of fine tapestries and other wonderful examples of many sorts of art - West Dean Tapestry Studio is one of the only professional tapestry studios in the UK. It's worth looking on their website for info on the history of the house, also some good info on Wikipedia.
The college offers many courses, all focussed on creative arts - everything from metal work, clock making, ceramics, furniture, to the fine arts, musical instrument making, sculpture, needlework, calligraphy, and many writing courses. You can do everything from a Master's Degree to a one day course in drawing.
So why did I choose a freelance Writing course? Yes, I have written and published over a dozen articles in UK sailing magazines since late 2012, but I would like to write for different magazines on different things. I hoped that the course would give me some hints and tips on how to present my articles to editors and write a good 'pitch'. The course started at 6.45 on Friday, where all students enrolled on one of the seven short courses gathered in the bar area. We didn't wear badges, so you didn't know who else was on your course. I had a drink with two ladies on a blacksmith course, and someone else making jewellery, and we tried to guess which other people in the bar might be on our different courses. The woman with a bohemian scarf wound around her scary straggly dreadlocked hair wearing a patchwork skirt, rainbow socks and clogs - well, she could have been doing anything, from landscape gardening to poetry......
Our tutor for the freelance writing was Joanna Moorhead. She writes several times a week for the Guardian, often in their weekend 'family' section, plus other magazines. She writes about women's issues, family topics, health, feminist issues etc. She has a piece coming out this weekend about the mother of a guy in Philadelphia who massacred classmates at a school. She has apparently written it from the mother's viewpoint and how she has suffered and been ostracised by the local community. So I'm looking forward to reading that. Joanna and I had a previous connection - when my daughter Jess lived in Balham about ten years ago, she used to babysit in the evenings for Joanna's four daughters, and she also used to go round their house after work and make them tea, help with homework etc, while Joanna locked herself away in her office in the attic room. I had previously read some of her articles that she had written in Good Housekeeping, etc so I was aware of who she was.
There were 11 of us in the class, two males, the rest women. A couple were much younger than me, the rest around the same age. Some working, most retired. A few had made some attempt to have work published, but most were there because they didn't know where to start. The course consisted mostly of informal teaching, lots of discussion with contributions from the class, and a handout given at the end. There were lots of opportunities to ask questions, and we gave each other lots of feedback. Most of the others looked at me as some sort of expert, having already had articles published, and must have wondered what I was doing there! One of the ladies also had a sailing yacht, so she asked me to look critically at her blog, and she asked to read copies of my articles, which was sweet of her.
I thoroughly enjoyed the course, although I thought the pace was rather slow. It was lovely to meet some new, interesting people, and I certainly learnt more about the art of freelance writing.
Amazing coincidence
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DeleteIt all sounds fabulous George. Not unlike Oriel. Hope it's of help with being able to introduce yourself to a variety of other magazine editors. :) x
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading, Clare!
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