August Newsletter: Sharing the joy of writing
Sharing the joy of writing
This month, we’re celebrating you, our writing community, by giving you a week filled to the brim with free offerings.
Festivities begin on 12 August, when we’ll offer you the chance to be part of an online mini-course on Dialogue for Screenwriters.
We’ll be giving away our Introduction to Romance Writing absolutely free – but only between 12 and 17 August.
On 13 August we’ll be hosting our quarterly live webinar in which we’ll tackle that plague which infects writers at all levels of experience – writer’s block.
Whether you join us for all three, or just one, we’re excited to get to share the joy of good writing with you as we enter the last quarter of the year.
We have a last-minute place available on our Venice Writing Retreat (28 August to 4 September and/or 5 to 12 September) due to ill health.
Take time out of your busy daily life and responsibilities, and give yourself the space to work on your own writing in an inspiring environment, with individual mentoring. Please contact Trish on trish@allaboutwritingcourses.com to book a place on this unique experience.
Early bird specials for the last quarter of the year
We’d hate for the strains of Auld Lang Syne to fade without your having achieved your writing goals for the year.
Several of our courses are being run just once more before the end of the year, and four of them are on early bird special until 31 August. Book now for our flagship online Creative Writing Course (starting 7 October), or our immensely popular Cape Town Creative Writing Course (starting 7 October), which is almost full. There’s also our Johannesburg Creative Writing Course (starting 4 November) which is on early bird sale until 30 September.
For the screenwriters and film fanatics among us, choose from our Screenwriting Crash Course or the more advanced Kickstart Your Screenplay course, both of which begin on 16 September.
If you’d prefer some more light-hearted but enriching literary fun, we’ll be running two more Cape Town Creative Saturdays before the end of the year, in October and December. These always fill up far in advance, so book your spot now.
Book fair season in South Africa
Book fair season has dawned in South Africa. Both the South African Book Fair (6 – 8 September 2019) in Johannesburg and the Open Book Festival (4 – 8 September) in Cape Town recently released their programmes and opened ticket sales.
The South African Book Fair is organised by the South African Book Development Council and marks the end of National Book Week. This year, the SABF has moved to a new location: The Women’s Jail at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg.
We’re particularly excited about the Underground Booksellers Tour, on which Griffin Shea, owner of Bridge Books, leads book lovers to through the hidden and unexplored literary spaces of Johannesburg.
As always, the SABF has a stellar line-up of authors, including Eva Mazza (author of Sex, Lies, and Stellenbosch), who joined us on our Venice Writing Retreat last year.
If you’re in Cape Town, you can’t do better this September than The Open Book Festival, organised by one of our favourite independent bookshops, The Book Lounge. The festival takes place at several locations across and around the city, including The Book Lounge and The Fugard Theatre.
We’re delighted to see several All About Writing community members on the author list: Ekow Duker (Yellowbone), Eva Mazza (Sex, Lies, and Stellenbosch) Susan Newham-Blake (As if Born To You) and Lauren Smith.
Community news
Our hearty congratulations to All About Writing alumnus Frankie Francis, who is self-publishing her memoir, Stay Light in the Saddle. Here’s what Frankie has to say:
I joined All About Writing in 2012 as a very green but “I-know-it-all” budding writer. Thanks to Jo-Anne and Richard’s patience (and tears and tantrums on my part), they guided me through two writing courses (yes, two!) and accepted me on their mentoring group.
Stay Light in the Saddle launches at the Welcoming Function of the Walvis Bay Endurance Ride on Monday 26 August 2019.
Challenge winners and new challenge
We’re thrilled to announce that Neo Botha has won our June/July Flash Fiction Challenge. Runners-up in no particular order – but with equal praise to each! – are Liz Lewis, Mitzi Bunce-van Rooyen, Lu Nell,Carla Brown, Monica Cockbain, and Kate Francis. You can read their fantastic winning pieces here.
For our latest challenge, we invite you to write a piece of flash fiction (no more than 250 words) inspired by a favourite song. Be sure to include the name of the song and the artist in your entry.
The winner snags a literary assessment on 5000 words of writing worth R 2750 / £ 150 or a voucher to the same value to use on one of our courses or programmes.
Keep writing,
Richard, Jo-Anne and the All About Writing team
