2012 PROGRAMME

Jan 12^th

Open evening

Jan 26^th

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) beginning with the line: “I never could keep New Year Resolutions”

Feb 9^th

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) inspired by Valentine’s Day

Feb 23^rd

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) inspired by Charles Dickens (to celebrate the bicentenary of his birth). Maybe you could write something about a person “asking for more”, just like Oliver Twist; perhaps you could write about having Great Expectations of your own...the possibilities are endless!

Mar 8^th

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) inspired by the theme of “escape”. Perhaps a character is escaping from prison, from their past, from a bad marriage - even from a retirement home!

Mar 22^nd

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) inspired by the theme of “Easter” or “Spring”. It could be about a fresh start, a loss and rediscovery, or maybe an exploration of faith.

Apr 12^th

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) inspired by the theme of “food”. You could write about a favourite meal, a meal that brings back special memories, preparing food, selling food, even not having enough food to eat. Food should play a central part of the text.

Apr 26^th

Write a Shakespearean sonnet, to commemorate the birth and death of our National Bard. A Shakespearean sonnet needs to have 14 lines, 10 syllables per line and a rhyming scheme of ababcdcdefefgg. An example is below:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

May 10^th

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) inspired by the theme of the “doppelganger”. Perhaps your character meets a stranger who has the same name, perhaps they discover someone is impersonating them. Perhaps they are a twin and struggling with their individual sense of identity.

May 24^th

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) inspired by the theme of the “Queen’s Jubilee”

June 14^th

Mini competition - write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) that includes the words: crinkle, local, imperfection, polygamist, concession, vulgarity.

All completely chosen at random from the dictionary!

June 28^th

Pick a poem of your choice. Keep the title and the first line, and write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) inspired by this poem.

July 12^th

Summer social

July 26^th

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) inspired by the theme of the “Olympics”

Aug 9^th

Write a short story (1000 words max) beginning with the line: “the holiday was a disaster from day one.”

Aug 23^rd

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) inspired by the theme of “the loveable villain”. Perhaps your character is a rogue, always on the make; perhaps they are married to one!

Sept 13^th

Write a letter (1000 words max) or a poem (40 lines max) to your younger self. What advice would you give? What warnings or encouragement would you offer?

Sept 27^th

To celebrate National Poetry Day on Oct 4^th, we will be holding a group competition – have a go at writing a poem, 40 words max. You could write a sonnet, a haiku, a limerick, a ballad, or any form that takes your fancy. Open themed. Rules will be made clear before the event, and the winner will receive a small prize.

Oct 11^th

Write a short story (1000 words max) ending with the line: “having fathomed what the contraption was for, I put it back in its box and closed the lid”.

Oct 25^th

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) inspired by the theme of “horror”.

Nov 8^th

To celebrate National Short Story week (12^th-18^th Nov), we will be holding a group short story competition – 750 words max. Open themed. Rules will be made clear before the event, and the winner will receive a small prize.

Nov 22^nd

Write a short story (1000 words max) or poem (40 lines max) reflecting on the events of the past year.

Dec 13^th

Christmas social