Last call out for the Purely Haiku Course!

Purely Haiku:

Monday Afternoon 11th - 

Friday Breakfast 15th April 
Claridge House, Surrey, South East England
(just outside London)

Enquiries and Bookings:

Phone: 01342 832150

Phone: 0845 3457281

Claridge House:

http://www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk/courses.php#April

I think that's a brilliant price. It's a bargain for what you are offering. I thought it was going to be much more.

Annie Bachini (past President of the British Haiku Society)
.

There may be some of you who think it's not needed to do a whole course on haiku, after all it's only a certain format, very short, and easy to do. Far from it! ;-)

This course has been specifically designed to show you the delightful complexities and challenges of haiku writing.

It's designed to suit your own particular needs and ambitions.

You can start putting a collection together, or have poems that the best haiku magazines will accept, or just enjoy basking in an environment that is relaxing in every way whilst learning something new.

image©Claridge House


The course is designed to give benefit to both complete beginners and seasoned writers of haiku.  Even a highly published friend of mine from Washington State was considering coming over for this course! (Note: this isn't my anthology boss and co-editor but another highly accomplished writer from the same state.  See further below in my bio).

The food is exceptional, and ALL fabulous meals and luxurious tea/coffee/other hot drink and cake and biscuit breaks are done by the staff, we don't lift a finger! ;-)

Check our other links on Area 17 to get a further feel of this extraordinary course,
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http://area17.blogspot.com/2011/02/purely-haiku-unique-uk-based.html
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http://area17.blogspot.com/2011/03/still-time-to-book-up-for-purely-haiku.html
.
and check out our famous fun renga that we do every time to conclude the course:

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http://area17.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-residential-haiku-course.html

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Alan Summers

Alan Summers is a Japan Times award-winning writer for haiku and renku.

He has been a Poetry School Visiting Tutor for haiku, tanka, and renga, as well as appointed as the Japan-UK-150 roving renga poet-in-residence.

Alan is a founding editor for the haijinx humor in haiku magazine; renku/renga editor for Notes from the Gean haikai literature magazine; and creator of the Bath 1000 Verse Renga, and Hull Global Renga Projects.

Alan will be reading extracts from his forthcoming haiku collection due out in the Summer; as well as from the anthology he co-edited with Washington State haiku writer Michael Dylan Welch.

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Purely Haiku - a unique U.K. based residential course

PURELY HAIKU, LED BY ALAN SUMMERS AND KAREN HOY

Monday 11th - Friday 15th April 
Claridge House, Surrey, South East England
(just outside London)
 

I think that's a brilliant price. It's a bargain for what you are offering. I thought it was going to be much more.

Annie Bachini (previous President of the British Haiku Society)

Claridge House April 2011 Course details:
http://www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk/courses.php#April

The retreat is fantastic, the venue is peaceful, and everyone and
everything is catered for: no-one gets hungry and thirsty, and it's all
done for us too! The food is amazing, and I can vouch for that as my
background is in the family restaurant business.

We've had first timers to haiku as well as seasoned haiku writers
attending, and everyone benefits from the atmosphere.

The vegetarian and vegan food, covering all dietary needs, non-gluten,
non-wheat, non-dairy etc... is fantastic.

Plenty of organised tea, coffee, non-caffeine hot drinks, cold drinks,
homemade cakes, lots of biscuits including non-gluten and non-wheat etc...

The courses we lead, this is a new one, are excellent value, and it isn't
just for the price of the course, but superb food, accomodation, being
catered for throughout the day etc...

It really is a good course for anyone serious about haiku, or anyone
wanting an intensive course in haiku.

A week is perfect for getting a good grounding, rather than workshops
spread over a year.

It's also great fun, as it has to be, as we have four workshops per day,
but plenty of tea and coffee and non-caffeine hot and cold drinks too!

No matter how large the group every individual gets special treatment.
There are lots of opportunities for private one-to-one sessions, not just
once, but throughout the day, and the week.  It means I get to bed
exhausted but very happy. ;-)

We end the course Thursday night with a fun renga session.  There's
nothing intense in our intensive course.

Claridge House April 2011 Course details:
http://www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk/courses.php#April

 
TUTORS:

Alan Summers

Alan is founder of With Words, a UK-based provider of quality literature,
education and literacy projects, often based around the Japanese genres.

He is also the judge of The With Words International Online Haiku Competition.


Alan is also a founding editor for haijinx online magazine for humour
within haiku.

Along with being an editor for a number of anthologies, and two
haiku/renku online magazines, he is also co-editor of Fifty-Seven Damn
Good Haiku by a Bunch of Our Friends ISBN 978-1-878798-31-2 (2010) with highly-respected American publisher and poet Michael Dylan Welch that features the work of British, American, African and Japanese writers of haiku:
http://area17.blogspot.com/2010/11/fifty-seven-damn-good-haiku-by-bunch-of.html

Alan is an experienced workshop leader, and a Japan Times award-winning
writer, with an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University.

QUOTE

Alan is able to work with people who have no experience of poetry to
encourage them to try it.  He watches and listens with patience and
respect and offers guidance that is flexible enough to empower the
workshop participants but firm enough to support them.

School of Applied Community and Health Studies Centre 
for Personal and Professional Development



Karen Hoy

Karen is a published haiku writer with Snapshot Press (both journal and
Haiku Calendar); Haiku Presence magazine; and British Haiku Society
journal Blithe Spirit (and BHS anthologies).

Her non-haiku work includes My Mother Threw Knives (Second Light
Publications 2006); and she was Highly Commended in the BBC Wildlife
Magazine’s Nature Writer of the Year Awards, 2009.

2010 and 2011 found Karen featured in the American/British anthology
Fifty-Seven Damn Good Haiku by a Bunch of Our Friends edited by Michael Dylan Welch and Alan Summers (Press Here 2010); and Another Country, Haiku Poetry from Wales, edited by Nigel Jenkins, Ken Jones, and Lynne Rees (Gomer Press 2011) showcasing Wales's haiku pioneers:
http://area17.blogspot.com/2011/02/karen-hoy-appears-in-major-new-haiku.html

Mini-memoirs course led by Karen Hoy, Claridge House, Surrey U.K.

Want to write memoirs of your earlier life?   Don't know where to start? 

There are still places available on our Mini-Memoir residential course, run by workshop leader Karen Hoy and assisted by Alan Summers, at the wonderful Claridge House, running from Monday 17th January (a week this Monday) to the Friday morning.  
 

We'll use themes, exercises and discussion to help you unlock and write those short pieces of writing that are complete in themselves.   

You can then extend them into fuller memoirs in your own time.

We first used the Mini-Memoir exercises in a workshop setting to generate ideas for haibun, so haibunistas will be at home here.

n.b. haibun is economic prose with one or more haiku.

 
 

Themes will be on many subjects, in a friendly supportive atmosphere, where humour will always be a vital ingredient.

Claridge House January 2011 Course:

http://www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk/courses.php#January

Karen Hoy is a published writer (and poet) and has led a number of memoir based workshops for With Words which promotes the love of words.   

Karen has a Diploma in Creative Writing from the University of Bristol.

Alan Summers 

is the founder of With Words, and has been involved with the BBC Poetry Season.  

He is an experienced workshop leader, and a Japan Times award-winning writer, with an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University.