Gwyl Ysgrifennu Môn / Anglesey Writing Festival brings the best of local and nationally renowned authors to your doorstep, with a day dedicated to inspiring writing!

Dewch i wrando a chymerwch ran yn ein gweithdai ysgrifennu a mwynhau ddiwrnod allan ysrbydoledig!

This years' workshops include crime writing, memoir, fantasy, eco-poetry, mindful writing - there's a session for everyone to enjoy. Learn how to write crime thrillers from a best-selling author (Conrad Jones) or how to work in genre-writing (Vampires That Don't Bite with DeAnn Bell), launch into writing your next series of poems about landscape or explore eco-poetic themes. There will be two Welsh-focussed workshops, including a poetry class suitable for beginner Welsh-speakers (Ness Owen).

If you're new to writing and not sure which genre suits we have twelve workshops to try out. Chose one morning session and one in the afternoon, and flex those writing muscles - discover a whole new path on your writing journey! There will be Ask-the-author, 1-2-1 feedback, Q&A for any writing question you've always wanted the answer to. Chat over lunch with other writers or enjoy browsing the stalls between workshops. (Plenty of onsite parking).

10.00 AM workshops:

• “Connecting Character & Place” (Dr Emma Venables)
• “Love Songs of the Sea” (Ness Owen - Cymraeg/English)
• “The Rhyme word has to be the right word” (Phil Bowen)
• “Perspective & Pace in Fiction” (Karen Ankers)
• “Writing a Memoir” (Joy Mawby)
• “Everyone’s a Writer” (Pauline Kenyon)

13.30 PM workshops:

• “Writing Crime Thrillers” (Conrad Jones)
• “Vampires that Don’t Bite” (Dr DeAnn Bell)
• Poetry workshop (Glyn Edwards)
• “Mindful & Intuitive Approaches (Kat Kingsley-Hughes)
• “Writing a Bio/Autobiography” (Gillian Monks)
• Welsh prose

https://gwylangleseyfestival.uk/2022-workshops/

Workshop leaders:

Conrad Jones is a bestselling British author of thriller, mystery, horror, and suspense stories. He has successfully written more than 20 books in his career so far and is famous for writing the Soft Target Series, the DS Alec Ramsey series, the Hunting Angeles series, the DI Braddick series, and the Anglesey Murders series. http://www.conradjones.org

Want to write Crime Fiction? This workshop will show you how to write convincing characters in this ever-popular genre. How to add the mystery and intrigue into your story and keep your readers guessing.

Phil Bowen was born in Liverpool in 1949, and worked as a teacher and publican before becoming a full time writer in 1994. Nowhere’s Far – New & Selected Poems was published by Salt in 2008. Recent work includes ‘Orange Blind’, poems about the Scottish Colourists.

Rhyme can make sense out of nonsense but when done badly rhymes are predictable and soggy. Phil’s workwhop will use examples from poets that include Philip Larkin, Adrian Mitchell, Robert Frost and Leonard Cohen – and work with rhyme in a way that lightens a complex thought rather than weighs one down.

Dr DeAnn Bell is an author and lecturer who loves to teach old dogs new tricks. She is published with Women’s Archive Wales, Witches and Pagans, and Sage Woman and is a professional member of the National Association of Writers in Education, The Society of Authors, and organises the North Wales Pagan Moot Group.

Writing in a trope-heavy genre such as supernatural fiction or the occult can be a minefield of reader expectations and unspoken genre rules. DeAnn’s workshop ‘Vampires that don’t bite’ will use tried and true horror clichés to help you create stories that give old monsters new life.

Emma Venables’ short and flash fiction has been widely published in magazines and journals. Her short story, ‘Woman at Gunpoint, 1945’ was a runner-up in the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize 2020. She has a PhD in Creative Writing and has taught at Royal Holloway, University of London and Liverpool Hope University. Her first novel, Fragments of a Woman, will be published by Aderyn Press in 2023. @EmmaMVenables.

Emma’s workshop will focus on character & place in short fiction. We’ll examine how curiosity and empathy in the creative process lead to the development of authentic characters and environments. We’ll explore how to achieve this authenticity without overloading your narrative.

Pauline Kenyon is a published author of 16 books. She writes regularly for a variety of magazines and organisations and has had many short stories and articles published nationally. She has acted as tutor at the past two Anglesey writing Festivals and also for other writing groups and schools. She is an active member of the ‘Just Write On’ Anglesey writers’ group, having been a founder member of the original group and part of the team that published two highly successful anthologies of Anglesey writers work.

‘Everyone’s a Writer’ will be an active, fun session suitable for writers at all stages of their writing experience!

Ness Owen is a poet and lecturer from Ynys Môn. She has been widely published in journals and anthologies including in Planet Magazine, Mslexia, The Cardiff Review, The New Welsh Review, The Interpreter’s House, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Atlanta Review, and Poetry Wales. Her first collection Mamiaith (Mother Tongue) was published by Arachne Press in 2019. Her second collection Moon Jellyfish Can Barely Swim will be published by Parthian in 2022. Her poems have been translated into 5 different languages. She has recently taken part in Ù Ơ | SUO, a poetry exchange project between Wales and Vietnam, supported by the British Council and co-edited the A470 a bilingual poetry anthology about the infamous road running from the north to the south of Wales.

Living on an island it’s not surprising that the sea or the sea wind often appears in our poems. In this workshop, we will read and discuss a variety of sea inspired poetry and use prompts designed to produce poems that surprise us. There will also be time to share drafts and receive feedback. ** NESS’S WORKSHOP WILL BE DELIVERED YN GYMRAEG & ENGLISH AND IS ADAPTED FOR WELSH LEARNERS/BEGINNERS **

Kat Kingsley-Hughes has a long history of writing, publishing, and screenwriting, as well as training as a psychotherapist and mindfulness teacher. She runs a weekly creativity clinic, writer’s groups and creativity retreats using such diverse methods as play, crafts, yoga, music, drumming, Hakomi, focusing, counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy and hypnosis.

Kat’s workshop distills observations and experience about the psychology behind creative blocks, with mindful and intuitive approaches to working through our blocks, unlocking our creative side, and enabling us to craft a better relationship with the inner critic that holds us back from our full potential as writers.

Karen Ankers is a poet, playwright and novelist completing her PhD in creative writing. Her poetry has been published in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, and her short plays have been performed in the UK, USA, Australia, Malaysia and Canada. Her first novel, The Crossing Place, has been described by readers as ‘gripping’ and ‘compelling’.

‘Perspectives and Pace in Fiction’ will approach ‘seeing differently’, examining how adopting an altered perspective might impact on pace and plot development. As we follow characters around with a movie camera, sometimes long shots, sometimes close-ups, we’ll think about how different ways of seeing details can alter the mood of a scene, and how a slight shift in perspective can powerfully impact a reader’s experience.

Glyn Edwards is a PhD researcher in eco-poetry at Bangor University. His first poetry collection, Vertebrae, is published by the Lonely Press. ‘In Orbit’ is forthcoming with Seren. Glyn edits the Wild Words feature for the North Wales Wildlife Trust and is Associate Editor at Modron magazine. He is trustee of the Terry Hetherington Award for Welsh young writers and works as a teacher in north Wales.

Using poems from Simon Armitage, Langston Hughes and Emily Dickinson, Glyn’s workshop ‘Other Minds’ will encourage you to begin at least three new pieces of writing. If you can’t live dangerously, you may as well live vicariously.