Scottish Writers’ Centre Poetry Masterclass (part 1) with Brian Whittingham

A talk by Glasgow author Brian Whittingham followed by a labour/ narrative poetry workshop looking at gathering ideas, generating raw material and writing a poem, followed by taking an assignment away for the following week.

In this first session Brian will talk about how he started on a journey as a rookie writing group virgin at Paisley writers to a stint as a visiting Poetry Professor at Seattle University. The expectations and disappointments, in short, the journey taken by one writer with all the highs and lows. The session will culminate in a poetry workshop assignment given out that attendees will be expected to complete for the following week where they will be shown how to read, criticise and edit their work looking closely at Free Verse line-breaks.

Whittingham is the author of five poetry collections, the most recent being Clocking In Clocking Out (poems and photographs on the subject of work) and an accompanying writing workshop manual, People who work Standing Up, 2012. His short fiction includes The Father Who Bought Fear which was broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 2012 and The Charing Cross Carpet, winner of the Sunday Herald Christmas short story competition in 2000. He has had residencies in New York at YADDO artist’s colony in 1994 & at Lithuania in 2006 & at GREZ in France with the RLS fellowship in 2008. He has read his work on BBC radio and television and appeared at Bumbershoot and the Burning Word literary festivals in Seattle. He’s also a past editor of West Coast magazibne, Nerve magazine and New Writing Scotland.