The Orchard at Grantchester

Eden.

King Lear at the Globe Theatre

Tonight we participated in one of London’s premier literary events—King Lear at the Globe. The theater is a re-creation of the venue in which Shakespeare’s contemporaries would have attended his plays, best experienced, we were told, from the “yard.” Standing. For three hours.
Which wouldn’t have been so bad except we started the day with a [...]

There’s No Such Thing as Writer’s Block

For yesterday afternoon’s screenwriting class, we had a guest speaker: Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, currently on a book tour for Crime. Unexpectedly for a writer of his cult stature, he didn’t just show up to be interviewed by Antonia, with whom I believe he’s currently working on a screenwriting project, or answer questions from the [...]

Learning Styles

Two days in to our screenwriting workshop with Antonia Bird (Ravenous) and Marcella Forster, it’s clear that we’ll be engaging the material with a lot of in-class exercises. The course started yesterday right away with a questionnaire to help us identify our learning styles.
A testament to the usefulness of the exercise was that universally the [...]

Cambridge Day One: Setting Goals

For the next three weeks, I will be living every writer’s dream: I am studying at Cambridge!
Just in the nick of time (I’m about to graduate), my master’s program has collaborated with Pembroke College to create a two-track course studying fiction and screenwriting. My thesis—due 16 weeks from today (egads!)—is a novel. But except that [...]