What happens when you put a playwright and a short story writer in the same

room and blend their skills?

In the case of Sheila Hannon, creative director and co-founder of Show

of Strength theatre company and Rebecca Lloyd, creative writing tutor and the

winner of the Bristol Short Story Prize 2008, you get the opportunity to learn

from two of the South West’s great writing talents.The pair will be

collaborating to run Making a Drama out of a Crisis, a two-day creative writing

course at the Southville centre, Bristol, on August 8th and 9th 2009.The

third member of the team is Katherine Mansfield, deceased in 1923, whose short

stories will provide the inspiration for the course.With Sheila and

Rebecca’s guidance, you will take characters from two different classics by

short story writer Katherine Mansfield and introduce them to each other, writing

new dialogues for them and finally turning the dialogues into

scripts.“Katherine Mansfield was a remarkable woman,” Rebecca says. “She

died at the age of 35, and in her life produced such beautiful stories that

quite a few writers of the time, Virginia Woolf included, envied her ability.

When Mansfield died, Woolf wrote of her, ‘I was jealous of her writing - the

only writing I have ever been jealous of.”’The idea behind the course is

to provide you with a shortcut to believable characters, while paying homage to

a great but little known short story writer.If you’ve ever wanted to try

your hand at scriptwriting, but wasn’t sure how to get started, this creative

writing course could really help.“Sometimes writers struggle to create

convincing fictional characters, so ‘borrowing’ them can be a great way to get

started and create dramatic scenes and situations,” Sheila says. “Characters

that can take months to develop for a fictional work can then take just minutes

to stand up and speak.”Throughout the course you’ll receive input from

Sheila, who has developed and produced work by more than 50 writers since 2006.

She’s also written several dramas aired on Radio 4, including ‘Letters From

Africa’ with Eleanor Bron and ‘The Female Husband’ with Sandi

Toksvig.Rebecca will provide a different viewpoint on creative writing,

bringing with her a wealth of writing experience that has resulted in her being

published by a large range of literary magazines. She teaches creative writing

courses at the Grant Bradley Gallery and Borders Bookshop, Bristol.

Rebecca and Sheila collaborated previously on a series of workshops

called Trading Local, for Show of Strength Theatre Company.Poet Joanna

Butler was one of the participants and says: “I got two really great tips on my

piece; one from Sheila and one from Rebecca, which really helped me to focus my

writing.”By the end of the Making a Drama out of a Crisis two-day workshop,

the participants will have started a drama they can take away and carry on

working on at home.Dates: Saturday& Sunday, 8/9 August

2009Location: Southville Centre, Beauley Road, Southville, Bristol, BS3

1QGCost: £89Booking: email (preferred) becca.lloyd@yahoo.co.uk

or ring 0117 3771466