Yeats Unwrapped – Learn

A Series of Four Masterclasses in May

Welcome to Yeats Unwrapped at Yeats Society Sligo. We hope that, in coming months, we can offer you opportunities to: explore, listen, read, learn, enjoy and visit – so that you will come to know the life and work of WB Yeats and his family in a new way.

Our first opportunity is Yeats Unwrapped – Learn, a short series of masterclasses provided by four great writers.

We have a small number of places that we can fill for our great May Masterclasses.

Cost: €30 per class.

Tickets are available on Eventbrite

 

11am – 2pm on Saturday 8th May

Author Elaine Feeney has just been awarded the Kate O’Brien prize for her marvellous new book As you Were.

She lectures at The National University of Ireland, Galway, where she is also a founding member of the Tuam Oral History Project. She published three poetry collections including The Radio was Gospel & Rise. She has also written the award-winning drama WRoNGHEADED commissioned by the Liz Roche Company, which toured internationally including a very successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Feeney’s Sojourn is included in The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories. She was chosen by The Observer as a top debut novelist for 2020.

THE COURSE
Is a masterclass in writing. Elaine Feeney’s Masterclass offers the writer advice from the first kernel of an idea, through to writing a synopsis, planning your novel and what to do when you get there – the submission process and what to expect. She will focus on developing voice, characters, and practical information on what to expect when you send your manuscript out. Also, and perhaps the most damning of all – how to avoid procrastination!’

11am – 2pm on Saturday May 15th

Mikel Murfi is from Sligo. He trained at L’Ecole Theatre de Jacques Lecoq, Paris.

He is an actor, writer and a director. His theatre performances include his 2 solo shows The Man in The Woman’s Shoes and I Hear You and Rejoice, (Loco and Reckless Productions), Dolores (Junk Ensemble), The Last Hotel and Ballyturk; (GIAF/Landmark) Swan Lake/Loch na hEala, (Teac Damsa), The New Electric Ballroom (Druid); Morning After Optimism, Playboy of the Western World (Peacock Theatre); The Comedy of Errors, The Tempest (Abbey Theatre) Giselle, Rite of Spring and Petrushka (Fabulous Beast) Desire Under The Elms (Lyric, Hammersmith).
Recent directing work includes Waiting for Godot (Theatre Du Pif, Hong Kong); The Far Off Hills (Nomad Theatre Network). Toraiocht (Fíbín). Other directing work includes Falling out of Love (Yew Tree), Focal Point (TEAM), B for Baby (Abbey), The Second Coming (Fidget Feet/Hawk’s Well Theatre) and The Walworth Farce, Penelope (Druid); Arrah na Pogue Abbey TheatreFilm includes: The Ballad of Kid Kanturk, Sweety Barrett, The Butcher Boy, Love and Rage, Guiltrip and Jimmy’s Hall. As a director: Drum and John Duffy’s Brother.

THE COURSE

The course is centred on writing for theatre. The focus is primarily on those people who have not yet had work produced.

11am – 2pm on Saturday 22nd May

Jessica Traynor is poet in residence at Yeats Society Sligo and a creative fellow at UCD.

Her debut collection Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014) was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award and was named one of the best poetry debuts of the past five years on bustle.com. It has been translated into Portuguese and published in Brazil. Her second collection The Quick was an Irish Times poetry choice of 2019. She has worked as Literary Manager at the
Abbey Theatre and Deputy Museum Director at EPIC – the Irish Emigration Museum.

THE COURSE
Taking our lead from some of Yeats’ best loved poems, we’ll be generating some new work and also workshopping one poem by each participant. Participants should have a poem ready to share with the group, and familiarise themselves with the ‘Share Screen’ function on Zoom so the work can be read by the group. It’s recommended that this workshop is taken on a laptop or desktop rather than a phone or tablet.

11am – 2pm on Saturday May 29th

Arnold Thomas Fanning is a writer living in Co. Cork.

His fiction and non-fiction have been published in The Dublin Review, Banshee, gorse, The Lonely Crowd, The Stinging Fly, Correspondences: An Anthology to Call for an End to Direct Provision, The Music of What Happens: The Purple House Anthology of New Writing & elsewhere. His work has also been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and on RTÉ Radio 1, including for Arena, and A Living Word. In 2020 he was Arts Council Writer in Residence, NUI Galway. Mind on Fire: A Memoir of Madness and Recovery was published in 2018 and shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize.

THE COURSE
Memoir, or Life Writing, is among the most challenging, as well as the most rewarding of genres to write in, and today is enjoying increasing prominence and popularity. Writers of memoir need to be able to have an arsenal of technical methods to hand, as well as be able to navigate through issues of veracity, ethics & other people, motivations & approaches, all the while approaching the potentials and limitations of memory.
Arnold Thomas Fanning will lead participants through some of the key aspects of writing Memoir/ Life Writing, in a practical and participatory workshop. Drawing inspiration from the autobiographical writings of WB Yeats, as well as other writers, participants can expect to be reading and discussing extracts of Memoir, writing to prompts, and sharing and critiquing each other’s work in a structured and supportive environment.

Places are non-transferable.

Places are very limited to ensure participants have a good experience

We would like to thank our warm and generous masterclass hosts, Elaine Feeney, Mikel Murfi, Jessica Traynor and Arnold Thomas Fanning for delivering our first ever masterclasses. The feedback has been very positive and we hope to run further masterclasses later in the year.