Hello everyone,
We’re kicking off this month with a big Permission Corner - both for me and, I hope, for you! Following on from my thoughts last month about both loving to teach workshops and being too tired from all my outward-facing work to make time for my own writing, I am delighted to introduce you to my brand-new writing (ad)venture:
Unbox Your Words - Permission to Play!
What is all this about? Let me tell you more! What I’m offering is a monthly invitation into your email inbox to help you if you’re feeling a little stuck in what you’re writing, how you’re writing - even why you’re writing - and to give you permission, whatever you’re working on, to play in all ways. Whether you’re writing things called poems, short stories, flash fictions, non-fictions, hybrid pieces, longer works, my aim is to encourage you to write what you want to write in the way you want to write it.
Subscribers to the new Unbox Your Words section here on Substack will receive two short emails a month from me, starting in September:
Email 1: On the 10th of each month, once that “it’s a new month”! energy has started to wane, you will receive a Writing Provocation. This will be a writing exercise or writing prompt, to either invite you to write or to think about writing - or both! It might be a short video or audio clip (always with a transcript), or in the text of the email, and it will either give you a way to write something new or stimulate you to look afresh at something you’ve been working on.
Email 2: This will arrive randomly later in the month with something I think you might like to read - either a piece of writing I’ve come across that you might never have found, or an interview with an adventurous writer to pass on more permission to you to keep unboxing your words!
Unbox Your Words isn’t a writing course, it’s a monthly invitation, with no pressure to respond, it will be there to get your neurons whirring a little and to warm up your writing muscle whenever needed. I will also open up each Unbox your Words post to comments because part of my wish with this is to create a community where we are all passing permission between us and no-one feels they “shouldn’t” or “can’t” do something in their writing. It won’t be a forum for posting work, but a place to chat about how you felt about my Provocation, what the reading did or didn’t do for you, and it will be exclusively for subscribers.
I will also be running occasional low-price Zoom workshops exclusively for subscribers, and other perks too - such as a discount on the new book I have coming out in 2025 which I am not allowed to talk about yet, more details coming soon!
I’m really excited about this, it’s a new way for me to use all my experience teaching writing workshops and passing on permission! We’re kicking off in September, and all you need to do to join in is upgrade your Substack subscription to a paid subscription - which for the first 200 subscribers will only cost £3.50 per month, the price of a fancy cup of coffee/tea/hot chocolate with marshmallows. After that, the price will go up to £5. So click on the Upgrade my Subscription button now and join us! (If £3.50 a month isn’t something that is possible for you, I do have a few free subscriptions to give away, send me a message and I’ll add you, no questions asked.)
And in case you’re concerned, I promised that this Highly Irregular newsletter would always be free - and it always will be, you’ll keep getting this every month whether you upgrade to paid or not!
Events
Along those lines of passing on permission, join me next Wed June 19th at 7pm UK time evening on Zoom for my webinar for Nine Arches Press on Prose, Poetry and Badly-Made Fences, where I’ll be talking about my journey through sentences, lines and beyond! Book your place here: https://ninearchespress.com/shop#!/Perspectives-on-Poetry-Form-Masterclass-Webinars/p/646598062/category=0 If you can’t make it on the night, you’ll receive a link and you can watch it for up to two weeks afterwards .
I’m co-running a Zoom workshop for Arvon on July 23rd, Marvellous and Impossible Things, with the amazing Sean Lusk, to raise funds to be able to offer a highly subsidized place on the magical-realism-themed residential Arvon course we are co-tutoring together at Totleigh Barton, in Devon, in October. Book for the masterclass here https://www.arvon.org/writing-courses/courses-retreats/masterclass-marvellous-and-impossible-things/ - and there are a few places left for the residential course, too, we’d love to see you in Devon: https://www.arvon.org/writing-courses/courses-retreats/residential-writing-week-fiction-25/. We’ll be opening applications for the highly subsidized place to writers from underrepresented communities just after the July masterclass.
Due to illness, I had to postpone last weekend’s Magic of Collisions Zoom workshop for Retreat West - and the new date will be Sunday 28th July, 11.30-1.30pm UK time - details and booking here https://www.tickettailor.com/events/retreatwest/1177665!
And finally, I’m excited to be reading at two live events in Manchester - Old Levy Library’s Un-heim lit - strange and uncanny spoken word for Pride month event, on June 28th, with some amazing fellow writer, tickets here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/levenshulmeoldlibrary/1223068! And I am part of another wonderful line-up at the gorgeous Portico Library on July 10th for their Manchester Fiction Writers event, details here! https://www.theportico.org.uk/event-calendar/manchester-writers-at-the-portico-library.
Well, I think that’s enough to be going on with for the moment, don’t you? Let me know if you have any questions about Unbox Your Words, here’s to permission to play, I can’t wait to get started!
Tania x