Faber & Faber

Course begins 6 October 2010

The Stevenson House
17 Heriot Row

Edinburgh EH3 6HP
www.stevenson-house.co.uk

Price: £3,500

Becoming a Poet 2010: a practical workshop-based course which covers all aspects of poetry-writing from improving your technical skills to putting together a first collection.

Becoming a Poet 2010 is a six-month course from the Faber Academy. Beginning in October 2010, students will attend weekly evening workshops designed to develop an appreciation of the best poetry as a source for writing, to hone your practical skills, and to develop your editing skills.

In addition there will be six full-day sessions on one Saturday every month. The Course Directors, John Burnside and Jacob Polley, both acclaimed poetry and prose writers, will lead the sessions and divide the teaching between them. There will also be guest seminars led by well-known poets and publishers to provide a unique insight into the publishing industry and access to established poets.

Becoming a Poet 2010 is an intensive course aimed at new or experienced writers who aim to publish a first collection of poetry. You will be expected to devote as much time as possible to reading the work of other writers, and to writing new poems and editing existing ones so that by the end of the course you should be in a better position to assemble a strong body of work which you might consider submitting to key poetry journals and publishers. The seminars will be tailored to the needs of the group, but the Course Directors will lead both reading and writing workshops around a variety of themes. Students should finish the course with a greater and more rounded enjoyment of the pleasures of reading poetry as well as a fuller appreciation of poetic technique and composition.

Individual feedback will be given by the Course Directors and students will be expected to peer review each other’s work on a regular basis. There will be opportunities for students to discuss ‘next steps’ with the Course Directors and with the guest speakers.

The course will be selective.

Course Programme

All classes will be based at The Stevenson House, the childhood home of Robert Louis Stevenson, (1850-1894) creator of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and Jekyll and Hyde.

The Stevenson House
17 Heriot Row

Edinburgh EH3 6HP
www.stevenson-house.co.uk

The course consists of 24 two hour evening sessions and 6 full day sessions.  Evening sessions will take place on Wednesdays from 7.00pm-9.00pm.  Full-day sessions will take place on Saturdays from 10.00am-5.00pm.

NOTE: There is a two-week Christmas break between sessions 14 and 15.

The subject matter of sessions as listed below is a guide only. The exact course content will be finalized according to the experience and interests of the group and guest speaker availability. The detail of the course content is at the discretion of the Course Directors and the Faber Academy.

NB: Please note that this programme is subject to change.

How to Apply

There are 15 places available on Becoming a Poet 2010.

Applicants should write a letter of application and return it to c/o Becky Fincham at the Faber Academy, Bloomsbury House, 74-77 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DA or email it to becky.fincham@faber.co.uk no later than 23 August 2010. The letter should state briefly your writing experience and why you wish to attend this Faber Academy writing course. In addition, you should include:

1. A sample of your poetry [3-5 poems. Maximum 5 pages of A4 (point size 12)]. Please do not send your only copy as this will not be returned.

2. A stamped addressed postcard if you wish your application to be acknowledged.

3. A stamped addressed envelope for receipt of the results of your application.

The Faber & Faber Fellowship

Up to one place on the course may be allocated free of charge. This place will be chosen at the discretion of the Course Director and the Faber Academy and will be based on merit and not financial circumstances.

Course Directors

Jacob Polley was born in Carlisle. His first book, The Brink, described by the Guardian as ‘the kind of poetry that imbues the everyday, the tarnished and burnished, with the possibilities of the transcendent’, was a Poetry Book Society ‘Choice’ and shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. His second collection, Little Gods, was published in 2006 and was a Poetry Book Society ‘Recommendation’. Jacob was Visiting Fellow in the Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, 2005-07, and his first novel, Talk of the Town, came out in 2009, also with Picador.

John Burnside, poet and novelist, was born in 1955 and now lives in Fife. He has published twelve collections of poetry, most recently The Hunt in the Forest (Cape, 2009) and Gift Songs (Cape, 2007). His collection, The Asylum Dance, won the 2000 Whitbread Poetry Award. He has also published seven works of fiction including Glister (Cape 2008) and The Devil’s Footprints (Cape 2007), and the memoir A Lie About My Father (Cape, 2006), which won the Saltire Book of the Year Prize and the Sundial/SAC non-fiction book of the year award.

Disclaimer

The Course Directors and Faber and Faber take no responsibility for lost or damaged applications and no correspondence will be entered into with unsuccessful applicants, although they may be invited to apply for future courses.

Successful applicants will be asked to pay a non-refundable deposit towards the course fees of £1,000 by 10 September 2010. The balance of the course fee, a further £2,500, will be payable in 4 further installments of £625 on 28 September, 28 October, 28 November and 28 December 2010 respectively. Once the deposit has been paid students will be liable to pay the entire course fee. No refunds will be given to students who miss sessions or drop out of the course.

The subject matter of course sessions is subject to change due to the level of experience and interests of the group and availability of guest speakers. The content of the programme is determined at the discretion of the Course Directors and the Faber Academy.

Although the Faber Academy is run by Faber and Faber publishers, admission to the course does not guarantee publication by them or any other publisher.