The Winchester Writers' Conference hosts a huge number of creative writing workshops and enables unpublished writers to show their writing to publishing professionals including literary agents and commissioning editors.
To date it has helped more than one hundred writers achieve major publishing success as a direct result of attending.
This year, its thirtieth, sees Sir Terry Pratchett and Poet Laureate Carol Anne Duffy join more than 65 other authors, poets, playwrights, producers, literary agents and commissioning editors for a weekend that will include a range of creative writing workshops and shorter hour-long lectures on, among others, the following subjects:
- Novel writing
- Short story writing
- Magazine article writing
- Travel writing
- Poetry writing
- Screenplay writing
Delegates can also pre-book up to three fifteen minute one-to-one appointments with writers, agents and commissioning editors, many of whom will read submitted work prior to the conference in order to give detailed feedback.
Where is The Winchester Writers' Conference and How Much Does it Cost to Attend?
The Winchester Writers' Conference is held at The University of Winchester which is on the outskirts of Winchester City Centre. Well serviced by the M3, it is roughly a ten minute taxi ride from Winchester Train Station, which is just under an hour's direct journey from London Waterloo.
The maximum cost of attending is £414. This includes all workshops, two nights' accommodation, and meals for the entire weekend.
It is possible to attend individual workshops or just the Saturday Programme, including three one-to-one's, for as little as £120.
How is The Winchester Writers' Conference Structured?
The weekend is structured as follows:
Creative Writing Mini-courses
These run between ten a.m. and four-thirty on the Friday and involve in-depth advice on dedicated aspects of creative writing.
As an example, Carolyn Caughey, a Consultant Editor at Hodder & Stoughton, is hosting Your Novel - The Final Countdown, aimed at those who want to learn how to edit their manuscripts before submitting for publication: Delegates are invited to bring the first two pages of their novels for critique during the day.
Other creative writing mini-courses on offer during the day on Friday include:
- Tackling your first novel
- Crafting the short film
- The art of writing articles
- Small but perfectly formed - writing a short, short story
- All aspects of comedy writing for TV, Radio and Magazines
Creative Writing Workshops
These take place on the Friday night and Sunday morning. As with the mini-courses, they involve in-depth advice on dedicated aspects of creative writing.
As an example, Lucie Whitehouse (a former agent with Darley Anderson who, following success with her debut novel The House At Midnight, now writes full time) will be running a workshop on how to make covering letters, synopses, and opening chapters of novels stand out on the slush-pile. Delegates are invited to bring their own slush-pile submissions for appraisal and feedback.
Other course titles include:
- Creating compelling characters
- Scriptwriting for mainstream television
- Poetry's never so intense - never so readable
- What makes an exceptional children's book?
The Saturday Programme
This starts with an address from Sir Terry Pratchett OBE, acclaimed creator of The Discworld series and author of over 60 books that, between them, have sold more than sixty-five million copies.
The rest of the day is divided into hour-long talks and workshops given by published writers, agents, editors, and creative writing experts.
Delegates are able to attend up to five of these lectures and have 60 to choose from. Talks include:
- A Walk Through The Crime Scene, presented by Lesley Horton, who specialises in writing police procedural crime novels.
- Be Your Own Most Exacting Creative Editor, presented by John Jenkins, an article writer who has also worked as an editor on many titles (including Writers' Forum).
- Travel Writing, presented by Fran Sandham, who was an editor at Rough Guides and now works as a freelance editor and travel writer.
Saturday is also the day when most one-to-one's take place, although it is possible to book some appointments on the Friday as well. During the Saturday there is also a book-fair with author signings, stalls specialising in 'how-to' manuals, plus plenty of other stalls covering aspects of self-publishing.
As well as the above the Winchester Writers' Conference runs several writing competitions with a prize-giving ceremony in the evening, plus a further week-long series of creative writing workshops.
For more detailed information on fees and all of the courses on offer, visit the Winchester Writers' Conference official website.
- The Winchester Writers' Conference, Festival and Bookfair at The University of Winchester:
- 25-27th June 2010
- Week-long Workshops:
- 28 June-2 July 2010
- writers conference.co.uk
Daniel Clay - My debut novel, Broken, was published in the Uk, US and Canada and shortlisted for The Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2009 and ...
