This course will prove invaluable to fiction and screen writers alike and will focus on the writer’s journey.
It will comprise ofa series of inspiring sessions, which will illuminate all aspects of creative writing. Through discussion, exercises, and example, this course will teach you writing techniques, provide you with insight into your creative process, and give you confidence to achieve your writing goals. You will acquire powerful tools which will enable you to learn how to develop your writing. You will also be given a dedicated time and space to get ideas on paper.
Topics Covered: Starting off: How do I find ideas?
The Theme: setting style.
The Plot: Conflict, tension & Suspense.
The Characters: Hero, Heroine, Villain or Clown.
Getting Started: Your work plan, the plot thickens, transitions, endings.
Dialogue: How to write convincing dialogue.
Choosing a title, editing. How to choose a title and edit your work.
Venue Open Learning Centre: Queen’s University, Belfast
Guests at this event will have the opportunity to join in a discussion, chaired by distinguished playwright, Christina Reid of Brenda Liddy’s second book. You will also hear selected readings by local actors, from the plays of Anne Devlin, Marie Jones and Christina Reid, which are pertinent to the research.
Venue: The South Bank Theatre, Kimberley Drive, (off Sunnyside Street, Ormeau Road: (map available on website http://www.southbankplayhouse.com) Refreshments will be provided.
Date: Thursday 25th Nov 2010 at 8pm
“Brenda Liddy writes with the awareness of someone who is both a careful witness and astute commentator. Her work is simultaneously nuanced and locally aware, yet functions just as easily on a more universal level. This exceptionally insightful, astute and creative book is a decisive move towards addressing many of the analytical imbalances in current scholarship.” Eamonn Jordan, PhD, Senior Lecturer and Theatre Specialist, University College Dublin
Please confirm attendance at brenda.liddy@googlemail.com
PRESS RELEASE
Leading local academic releases ground breaking book on women's role during the “Troubles”
Though the “Troubles” now seem a distant memory and feminism has ceased to be a fraught topic, a book is being published today which argues that the vast data about the Northern Ireland conflict has ignored the role played by women in containing the accompanying domestic and social mayhem.
Belfast academic Dr. Brenda Liddy has set the record straight with her second book, The Drama of War in the Theatre of Anne Devlin, Marie Jones and Christina Reid, Three Northern Irish Playwrights.
The book shows how the Troubles changed women’s drama—as local authors identified new theatrical material in the valiant leadership of Belfast women at grass roots level. Their vivid portrayal of feats of'derring-do’ and hairy escapades involving both Catholic and Protestant women—who often played fast and loose with the law in order to keep the peace—has secured for Northern Ireland a place in the war literature of the world, the book states.
Dr. Liddy concludes that the female-authored literature of this strife-torn period offers a rare insight into women’s lives – at an interlude in history when they transcended the roles of soldier’s wife, sister, mother or even passive victim – to assume the more public mantle of community activists, warrior lovers and, finally, peace brokers.
The three playwrights who mediate the book’s argument all grew up in Belfast, two in the Unionist tradition.
Actress Marie Jones, came to prominence as co-author of “Lay Up Your Ends” which turned a 1911 mill strike into popular political theatre. Unlike her later “Now You’re Talkin’”, its novelty was to show members of a group sympathising with someone whose political views they could not condone. In 1987, with “Somewhere Over the Balcony, she presented the Divis Flats, in all their desolation and deprivation, to a sophisticated London audience. Here, in a successful bid to bring social cohesion, three housewife sisters put their ingenuity against the controls practised by the British Army and the IRA.
Christina Reid, a docker’s daughter – who turned playwright with her memorable Tea in a China Cup at the Lyric in the 1970s – sets her drama in Loyalist areas. In My Name, Shall I Tell You My Name? She examines loyalties and the attitudes these can give rise to, even extending the action to Greenham Common. Her 1989 play, The Belle of Belfast City, puts the spotlight on the issue of family loyalty versus loyalty to crown and country.
Anne Devlin is the daughter of the late Belfast Community activist turned politician, Paddy Devlin. Bringing the war behind closed doors, her Ourselves Alone features three sisters who, in the wake of the 1980 Hunger Strikes, crave escape to a more peaceful environment. Her next play, After Easter, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1994, focuses on peace as a real prospect and highlights society’s need for healing.
Both she and Christina Reid argue that, by being made serve an Irish/British nationalist cause, women in Northern Ireland have been prevented from doing their own thing.
END
For images and interview enquiries please contact
brenda.liddy@googlemail.com Tel: 02890589442
Mobile:07853041025
Notes to editor
The Drama of War in the Theatre of Anne Devlin, Marie Jones, and Christina Reid, Three Irish Playwrights
“Brenda Liddy writes with the awareness of someone who is both a careful witness and astute commentator. Her work is simultaneously nuanced and locally aware, yet functions just as easily on a more universal level. This exceptionally insightful, astute and creative book is a decisive move towards addressing many of the analytical imbalances in current scholarship.” –Oftentimes writers are too close to the circumstances and contexts of their material; they lack the critical insights and distance necessary to make the work available to others less aware or less engaged with the circumstances from which the plays under discussion emerged. That is most definitely not the case with this book. Brenda Liddy writes with the awareness of someone who is both a careful witness and astute commentator. Her work is simultaneously nuanced and locally aware, yet functions just as easily on a more universal level. This exceptionally insightful, astute and creative book is a decisive move towards addressing many of the analytical imbalances in current scholarship.
Dr. Eamonn Jordan, University College Dublin
Brenda Liddy, from Co. Derry, is Northern Ireland’s newest literary critic.Awarded a PhD by the University of Ulster last year, she now teaches English at the Northern Ireland Regional College and is also professionally involved in community development work.She is a frequent guest speaker on the lecture circuits from Dublin to Swansea and is scheduled to undertake a book signing event in New York in the autumn.
2) Ballyhackamore Bards' Poetry Group - call for new members
The Ballyhackamore Bards' Poetry Group is calling for new members.
The group meets on the last Thursday of every month in Ballyhackamore Library at 6.45pm and is facilitated by local writer and poet Dr Brenda Liddy.
Brenda says "The group is for budding poets and beginners. You don't have to be W.B. Yeats or perform rhyming feats! If you bring a poem you are working on you'll receive feedback. If you have not written anything, don't worry, by the end of the meeting you will! If you are interested in publishing your work, help and encouragement will be provided."
The next meeting takes place on the 30th April 2009
1) Central Library, Chapters Cafe: Poetry Performance, every last Thursday at 12 noon
