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Many of us feel alienated from the vision of Albion which has existed in the British imagination for centuries as a green and pleasant land of tall ships and hay wains, white cliffs and country houses. Underlying that chocolate box take on rural life are histories of power, control, exclusion and the kind of acquisitiveness and exploitation which has led us to a state of planetary emergency.
This correspondence course aims to reclaim a feeling of enchantment with the land and a renewed sense of wonder and connection inspired by contemporary folk and outsider artists, place-based writers, poets and performers. We will consider the work of a wide range of artists, such as Zaffar Kunial, Corinne Fowler, Angeline Morrison, Ben Edge, Jason Allen-Paisant, Amy Jeffers, Merlin Sheldrake, Boss Morris, Nick Hayes and Max Porter. Working in whatever form they choose, participants will take their own unhurried time to create new stories, lyrical essays, non-fiction and poetry inspired by the themes and prompts of the course and have the opportunity to get tutor feedback throughout the 12 weeks of the course.
“The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.”
How it works
Every fortnight you will be sent some themed reading, images and other ephemera, an invitation to go on your own personal field trip, along with writing prompt(s) around an aspect of re-enchantment.
You should allow 2-4 hours per fortnight to read, reflect and write. You may want to do more than this, but this is a minimum guide to ensure you create space intentionally for your work.
You will be invited to send the work you’ve written in response for feedback from the tutor and you can share it online in the private online group where you can also chat to anyone else who is taking the course…
When enough writers join the course, an evening of online readings may be arranged. All participants will be invited to submit a piece of work for publication in the annual Dialect Anthology.
Thematic Content
The six fortnightly sessions will cover, among other themes:
Reenchanting Albion – living with loss, reclaiming connection
Green unpleasant land- decolonising the pastoral
Ritual and Magic – alternative powers, ancient enchantments
Plant, animal, human - entanglements
Folk – stories and song from oral traditions
Edgelands and Old Ways – re-joining place, mapping the land
Schedule
Starts 24th January (submit your work from this session for feedback by 6th February). Reading and prompts will be sent out fortnightly thereafter:
7th February (submit your work from this session for feedback by 20th February)
21st February (submit your work from this session for feedback by 6th March)
7th March (submit your work from this session for feedback by 14th March )
21st March (submit your work from this session for feedback by 3rd April)
4th April (submit your work from this session for feedback by 17th April )
Cost
£125 for 6 sessions and feedback. Purchase tickets from Eventbrite here.
If needed, the cost can be paid in 2 instalments (£65 on registration, £60 by 23rd January – please email dialectwriters@gmail.com to arrange this.) Please also email dialectwriters@gmail.com for concessions (£90).
About the tutor
JLM Morton is the director of Dialect and winner of the Laurie Lee Prize for Writing 2022 for her lyrical essay on rave culture, land rights, rivers and the climate emergency. Juliette has worked on whiteness, power and place for more than twenty years and has recently finished a poetry collection that decolonises the textile heritage of Gloucestershire and South West England - and seeks to find belonging in the ruins.
She has been published in over 30 journals in the UK and the US, including The Poetry Review, The Rialto, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal. Her pamphlet Lake 32 is published by Yew Tree Press (2020). Sometimes she collaborates with artists on sound installations and exhibitions - recent work includes ‘if trees were lone women, what would they sound like?’ for Sanctuary Lab, Galloway Forest (November 2021) and an audio installation for Immersions: Into the River Cam, Cambridge (June, 2022). ‘Churn,’ a poem sequence inspired by her swim-walk of a local river 23 miles from source to confluence with the Thames is forthcoming in Living With Water (Manchester University Press, 2023).