Thursday 2nd September (evening) Armagh (update)

We weren't sure how many we were expecting that night for the creative writing workshop I was to run. In the end, there was about seven or so in the upstairs room of an accountants. It was less than my host had hoped for. But seven's ok. I've worked with numbers from thirty down to one 'student' before. The group will be put through as a WEA course soon and the session fitted quite neatly into the module. The group was the Armagh writers and have recently publsihed Hometown, edited by John McAllister (who organised the session). They can be contacted at the ABC(ARMAGH BANBRIDGE AND CRAIGAVON) Writers' Network. 11 College Street, Armagh, BT61 9BT.

Here's what I did.

We took the words us, ourselves and we and used them as acrostics. The first was left sided, the second was right sided and the third, we split so the w was on the left and the e was on the right.

Line by line we created poems passing them around each time a new and different image to the poem was added.

u............................
s............................

............................ o
............................ u
............................ r
........................... s
............................ e
............................ l
............................ v
............................ e
............................ s

w............................e


The first two lines were about what we did in groups, the second section was how we worked as a group and the last line summed the poem up. I hope you're following this.

They then produced a memory being inspired by one of these lines. The piece was alternated with fiction which seamlessly fitted together as if narrated by a story teller.

The third piece was a monologue as if told by one of the objects in the story.

I'm still awaiting the results to be e.mailed.

There were two new students to the group that night. I hope they carry on.

That night, I sat in the bar of the hotel chatting. An interesting comment came out about Belfast, that Belfast was a political mess and the struggle which was a two sided affair was now four sided - there were now middle and working class Protestants struggling in the equation with the same two classes of Catholics. I sat and watched the German Cell documentary about the 9/11 bombers while another group drowned the sound out with their laughter and talk.