Date/Time
Date(s) - Mon 28th Jul - Sat 2nd Aug, 2025
All Day
Location
Moniack Mhor, Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire , IV4 7HT
One of Your Five a Day
Are you worried that your poetry lacks vital ingredients? Anxious that as a writer you’re running out of steam? Then this is the course for you. We’ll be discussing how to maintain a healthy, vitamin-enriched diet as a poet, banishing those familiar clichés of self-doubt: ‘I’ve nothing left to say’ ‘My poetry is too ordinary’ ‘Who’d want to publish me?’ Aimed at writers at all stages in their careers who are keen to put some spice back into their writing and live a healthy, sustainable life as a poet, using workshops, discussions, examples and ladlefuls of useful tips, we’ll guide you through a sequence of dos and donts that will help revitalise your writing and enrich your poems with a longer shelf life.
Tutors
John Glenday is the author of four collections. The Apple Ghost (Peterloo Poets 1989) won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and Undark (Peterloo Poets 1995) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Grain (Picador, 2009) was also a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and shortlisted for both the Ted Hughes Award and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. The Golden Mean (Picador 2015) was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Poetry Book of the Year and won the 2015 Roehampton Poetry Prize. His most recent publications are a limited edition artbook in collaboration with Maria Isakova Bennett, mira (Coast to Coast to Coast 2019) and a pamphlet, The Firth (Mariscat Press 2020). His Selected Poems also came out with Picador in 2020. In 2022 he was a judge for both the Michael Marks Poetry Award and the Saltire Scottish First Book of the Year for which he is a judge once again this year.
Helen Mort is a poet, novelist and creative non-fiction writer from Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Her collections Division Street, No Map Could Show Them and The Illustrated Woman are published by Chatto & Windus. She’s a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and teaches Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has also written and presented for BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3.
Guest Reader
Kit Fan writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction. His first novel is Diamond Hill (2021). His third poetry collection The Ink Cloud Reader (2023) was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prize. He reviews regularly for the Guardian and TLS. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Vice-Chair of Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS). He was born and educated in Hong Kong and now lives in the UK.
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 small single room with a skylight is available at a discounted price of £700. Please note this room does not have an ordinary window, only a small skylight.
A deposit is required to secure your place, which is non-refundable after a 14-day cooling-off period. The balance payment of £475 is due six weeks before the course begins. Refunds are not always available – please read our Terms & Conditions 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.