OF COURSE YOU CAN

See what I did? You get it?

Right, here’s the SP: I’m going to run a course in Newcastle and /or Leeds at some point soon. If there’s enough demand for it, of course (see, my subliminal use of ‘course’ is working). As mentioned last year, I’m interested in doing this for a few reasons: First, it may be therapeutic for me and I may stop writing blog posts about how not to approach publishers … but more seriously, I do think there’s a bit of a grey area in this whole publishing malarkey and it doesn’t seem like there’s that many places to learn from in a non ‘we’re going to take all your money and tell you stuff you don’t need to know and run off laughing’ capacity.

Tonto has ran courses in the past and, if I say so myself, they’ve always been brill value for money. I’ll be addressing different issues this time round though. It’s not a creative writing course, but I will bring in a few writing elements that many writers fall down on. There’ll be no poncey writing tasks either. Honest. Everything will be gearing you towards having a better chance of getting published – in your work and your approach, as well as practical stuff about self-marketing, making yourself marketable and looking at the business of writing and publishing. You need to know the business process as well as the artistic side – getting published is difficult because no one tells you about why decisions are made. This is the kind of thing they don’t teach you on a MA, but is more important than being able to write, in my opinion.

This year will be kicking off production-wise soon and is set to be a busy one, so I’m aiming to do it in the next month or two. It will be listed on arts mailshots, etc – if they support it – but anyone who reads this will obv have a ‘heads up’. I’d run it on a Saturday and Sunday, full days, depending on venue availability. Cost – no idea yet. I’ll be bringing a few people in to deliver talks and will need to chuck a couple of squids their way. I’ll be sorting a structure out this week, blogging it, sending details out and sticking it on the website. I’ll be talking to my web designer about how payment will work – probably listing in a way the books are and a Paypal account may be required. It’ll be first come, first served, and I’m assuming will need minimum of 10 people approx.