The New England Writers’ Centre (NEWC) will kick off a new series of ‘How Writers Write Fiction’ on Saturday, March 25, from 10am to 12.30pm, upstairs at the Armidale Library.

Featuring videos of international authors talking candidly and thoughtfully about how they work, the series is subtitled ‘Storied Women’ as it focuses on the characters created by women writers and the female characters created by all writers.

The classes at the library, held on the last Saturday of the month, tackle everything from voice and dialogue to plot and narrative structure. You can come along to some or all of them, as each session is self-contained.

This is the second year that the NEWC Writing HUB has offered local writers the opportunity to gather together and watch and discuss material from the University of Iowa’s fiction writing MOOC (massive open online course).

Based on feedback from previous attendees, the sessions have been extended by half an hour in order to include the option of attempting a short writing exercise.

One of the facilitators, Sandra Welsman, said the Iowa MOOC produces some wonderful exercises associated with the series.

“They just sort of make your heart swell when you read them, you think, I really want to get in and do that,” she said.

Some of last year’s participants travelled from Tamworth, Walcha and north of Glen Innes to attend the NEWC Writing HUB sessions. They said it was the variety of perspectives and the comradeship that kept them coming. 

“It gets me thinking about writing,” Christine Durham said. “I learned a lot from it. My life is busy and I enjoy setting aside time for doing this – this is one of the really pleasurable things that I do every month.”