2419 Tutored Retreat: Writing and Walking with Linda Cracknell and Kapka Kassabova, Guest Reader Horatio Clare

2419 Tutored Retreat: Writing and Walking with Linda Cracknell and Kapka Kassabova, Guest Reader Horatio Clare

Date/Time
Date(s) - Mon 6th May - Sat 11th May, 2024
All Day

Location
Moniack Mhor, Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire , IV4 7HT


Walking with Words

Place is an integral part of many writers’ prose practice, whether writing fiction or non-fiction. This tutored retreat will give you time and space in the expansive, nurturing environment of Moniack Mhor alongside walking, writing, and reading with Kapka Kassabova and Linda Cracknell. There will be optional short walks, during which you will be invited to consider themes and practices such as observational focus, exploring silence, or the role of maps in the layers of knowledge we construct and perceive around place. As well as the short walks, there will be one longer walk to Glen Affric (also optional), as well as one-to-one tutorials for an in-depth reflection on your work. 

Tutors

Linda Cracknell is a writer of fiction and narrative non-fiction and also writes for radio. Her writing is inspired by place and memory. As well as a subject in itself, walking is essential to her creative process. Her novel Call of the Undertow (2013) is about a cartographer working in isolation in Caithness and her friendship with a local boy who begins a process of revelation through his own maps. Doubling Back: Ten paths trodden in memory (2014) charts a series of walks, each of which follow a story from the past – personal, biographical or relating to the past journeys of groups such as drovers. It is reissued with a new essay in 2024. Her most recent publication is essay collection Writing Landscape: Taking Note, Making Notes (2023) “An object lesson in attentive looking … a small book, but a mighty one.” Scotsman.

Kapka Kassabova is a writer of place. She grew up in Bulgaria, studied literature in New Zealand, and has lived in Scotland for eighteen years. She has spent a decade working on a quartet set in the southern Balkans and exploring the relationship between people and their environment. Border won a British Academy Prize, the Stanford-Dolman Travel Book of the Year, the Saltire Book of the Year, the Highland Book Prize, and a number of European awards. To the Lake was awarded France’s Best Foreign Book of Non-Fiction. Elixir (2023) was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Conservation. The fourth is Anima: a wild pastoral (2024). Her work is translated into twenty languages.

Guest Reader

Horatio Clare’s books include Running for the Hills (Somerset Maugham Award), A Single Swallow, Down to the Sea in Ships (Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year), Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot (Branford Boase Award), The Light in the Dark, Orison for a Curlew and Something of his Art: Walking to Lubeck with J S Bach. His latest book is Heavy Light: a story of madness, mania and healing. Horatio broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 4, notably for From Our Own Correspondent, and presents Radio 3’s acclaimed annual Sound Walks series at Christmas. His latest series for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds is Is Psychiatry Working? He writes for the Financial Times, the Spectator, Conde Nast Traveller (where he is a contributing editor), and many other papers, websites and magazines. Horatio lectures in non-fiction at the University of Manchester.

Fees

The full fee for this course is £725. 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, which can be booked in advance for a £50 surcharge. We will also reserve an en-suite room for anyone who may need it due to a medical condition. This will be offered out as an upgrade nearer the course start date if it is not needed.

A limited number of Twin Room places are available at a discounted price of £675 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 £595 is due six weeks before the course begins. Refunds are not always available – please read our Terms & Conditions to for full details about our cancellation policy. If you would like to pay the full amount in advance, please call our booking office on 01463 592 828 or email info@moniackmhor.org.uk.

Bursaries are always available, and you also have the option to pay in instalments. If you have any problems paying online, or wish to discuss paying in instalments or applying for financial help, or would simply like assistance, please contact us by emailing info@moniackmhor.org.uk or phoning us on 01463 592828.

Access

Please let us know in your booking form if you have any access requirements, for example a ground floor bedroom and / or access to a step-free accessible shower room. We also reserve one en-suite bedroom per course for anyone who may need this due to a medical condition. For more information about access to our courses, please visit our Access page.

Terms and Conditions

Please read our Terms & Conditions before booking.


Bookings

This event is fully booked. Please email info@moniackmhor.org.uk to be added to the waiting list.


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