Date/Time
Date(s) - Mon 4th Dec - Sat 9th Dec, 2023
All Day
Location
Moniack Mhor, Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire , IV4 7HT
Untangle The Knots
This week-long tutored retreat offers an opportunity to focus intensively on a work-in-progress. Whether you’re just setting out, making the final changes, or stuck in the dreaded middle, Zoe and Paul will be on hand to help untangle knots and smooth away rough edges, as well as give general advice on character, setting and plot. Take an end-of-year break to meet fellow writers and find inspiration in a peaceful, supportive environment.
Amanda Smyth is Irish-Trinidadian. Born in Ireland, she is the author of Black Rock, A Kind of Eden and Fortune. Black Rock won the Prix du Premier Roman prize, was shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize and was selected as an Oprah Winfrey Summer Read. Fortune was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize in 2022. Amanda teaches creative writing at Arvon, Skyros in Greece. She lives in Leamington Spa with her family.
Kevin MacNeil is a leading Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and screenwriter, born and raised in the Outer Hebrides. His most recent novel, The Brilliant & Forever, was published to huge critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the Saltire Fiction of the Year Award. ‘The Brilliant & Forever 2022’, a literary festival themed around the novel, took place in front of Lews Castle in August 2022. Kevin recently edited Robert Louis Stevenson: An Anthology, Selected by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares. Kevin has won a number of prestigious literary awards. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Stirling. He invented Hai Cookery and lives with his rescue greyhound, Molly.
Jenny Brown founded Jenny Brown Associates in 2002, and now represents fifty writers of literary fiction, narrative non-fiction and crime writing. She was formerly first Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival and Head of Literature at the Scottish Arts Council.
Fees
The full fee for this course is £650. This includes your accommodation in a single room with shared bathroom, all meals, hot drinks and snacks from Monday afternoon until Saturday morning, and your tuition. For more information about the practicalities of our courses and retreats, please visit our About the Courses page.
A limited number of en-suite rooms are available for a £50 surcharge, and a limited number of Twin Room places are available at a discounted price of £600 per person. When booking a Twin Room place, please tell us in the comments box which gender you are and which gender(s) you are comfortable sharing a room with. This information will remain confidential.
A deposit is required to secure your place, which is non-refundable after a 14-day cooling-off period. The balance payment of £500 is due six weeks before the course begins. If you would like to pay the full amount earlier than this or at the point of booking, please call our booking office on 01463 592 828 or email info@moniackmhor.org.uk.
Please let us know if you have any access requirements, for example a ground floor bedroom and / or access to a wheelchair-accessible shower room. For more information about access to our courses, please visit our Access page.
On this course, tutors will read a sample of your work ahead of time to get a feel for your work. Details of how and when to submit this will be sent to you in the course notes upon booking.Bookings
This event is fully booked. Please email info@moniackmhor.org.uk to be added to the waiting list.