Syntax & The Sentence with Helen Hagemann

Syntax & the Sentence

Prose Class, 30^th June, 2017

This workshop will focus on breaking out of controlled syntax and sentence structure. Using Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, we will look at ways of unlocking the usual sentence structure of "subject/verb/object" and also ways of joining nouns with verbs to see what combinations we can come up with.

Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room, however enquire at desk. Time: 1-3pm. What to bring: Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad Cost: OOTA $20 - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save). For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website ootawriters.com

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The Poetics of Space: writing about intimate spaces

The Poetics of Space with Helen Hagemann

Friday, 16th June, 1pm-3pm. This workshop is about taking a journey into intimate spaces, through old houses, dream homes, cellars, attics, verandahs, sheds, up stairs, under stairs, even where a whole house might serve as a portal to the imagination. Writers will read sections of Gaston Bachelard's text "The Poetics of Space" and writing exercises will ponder miniature spaces, the significance of doorknobs, even consider the houses of things: drawers, chests and wardrobes.
Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room, however check at desk. Time: 1-3pm. What to bring: Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad Cost: OOTA $20 - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save). For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website ootawriters.com

Bachelard determines that the house has both unity and complexity, it is made out of memories and experiences, its different parts arouse different sensations at yet it brings up a unitary, intimate experience of living. Such experiential qualities are what Bachelard finds in the poetry and prose he analyzes. Home objects for Bachelard are charged with mental experience. A cabinet opened is a world revealed, drawers are places of secrets, and with every habitual action we open endless dimensions of our existence.  
      In "The Poetics of Space" Bachelard introduces his concept of topoanlysis, which he defines as the systematic psychological studying of the sites of our intimate lives. The house, the most intimate of all spaces, "protects the daydreamer" and therefore understanding the house is for Bachelard a way to understand the soul. 

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Inspiration through Photography with Helen Hagemann

Inspiration through Photography will focus on several photographers including Juno Gemes (AU), Deidi von Schaewen (DE), and famous aperture photographers, Berenice Abbott (US), Walker Evans (US) and Eugène Atget (FR).
Friday, 19th May, 1pm-3pm. Instead of readings we will look at the various artists' works choosing certain photographs to write about. Writers may choose to bring a favourite snap or photo album as a desired alternative.
Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Paint Studio, however check at desk. Time: 1-3pm. What to bring: Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad Cost: OOTA $20 - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save.For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website ootawriters.com

Eugène Atget photographed the city of Paris and its environs obsessively for almost thirty years. He discovered a market for documentary photographs of Old Paris, which were bought by artists as source material for their canvases. But for Atget, the production of photographs about old French culture was also an occasion for making art.
   His photographs are unparalleled in their lucid realism and their lyrical response to the living pulse of the city and to artifacts that speak of human life in almost every social class. His images of parks, lakes, shop windows, vendors, prostitutes, buildings, sculptures, and street scenes of Paris go beyond mere documentation to a poetic version of a time gone by. Atget created some of the most beautifully articulated images of light and space ever made with a camera-an imaginary world. 

                                                                       

Walker Evans, more than any other photographer in the thirties and forties, defined the documentary aesthetic. For over four decades he used his camera precisely and lucidly to record the American experience. He is generally acknowledged as America's finest documentary photographer of this century.
   He attempted to show both the beauty of his subjects and the horror of the social conditions in which they lived. During the Depression, from 1935 to 1937, Evans took part in the most extensive photographic project ever carried out in the United States - the pictorial survey of the Farm Security Administration. The now-legendary collaboration with James Agee that resulted in the masterpiece Let us Now Praise Famous Men documents his dedication to photographing the country he knew. Evans's talented eye and sensitive heart make him one of the great photographers of this century.

 

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Writing about Health: incl. Brenda Walker's "Reading by Moonlight"

Writing about Health with Helen Hagemann @ the Fremantle Arts Centre, Friday, 5th May, 1pm-3pm.  Readings of Brenda Walker's "Reading by Moonlight". This workshop will introduce writing ideas on health to help deconstruct our own experiences so that we can look more deeply into how health has affected the characters that we create on a day to day basis in our writing. If you have had problems with your health throughout your lifetime, this is a great area to draw from as there are many readers who will be able to relate. 
Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, enquire about room at front desk.
Time: 1-3pm. What to bring:  Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad
Cost:  OOTA $20  - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save).  
Please note: For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com

Reading by Moonlight by Brenda Walker: A memoir of reading and healing

The first time Brenda Walker packed her bag to go into hospital, she wondered which book to take with her. As a novelist and professor of literature, her life had been built around reading and writing. Now she was also a patient, being treated for breast cancer, fighting for her life and afraid for herself and her family. But turning to medicine didn't mean she turned away from fiction. Books had always been her solace and sustenance, and now choosing the right one was the most important thing she could do for herself.

In Reading by Moonlight, Brenda describes the five stages of her treatment and how different books and authors helped her through the tumultuous process of recovery. As well as offering wonderful introductions and insights into the work of writers like Dante, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Beckett and Dickens, Brenda shows how the very process of reading – surrendering and then regathering yourself – echoes the process of healing.

Reading by Moonlight guides, reassures, throws light on dark places, and finds beauty in the stories that come to us in times of jeopardy. It affirms that reading can be essential to life itself.

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Writing About Art (2) - Contemporary Impressionist, Daniela Selir

This workshop is a continuum of studying Daniela Selir's painting "Arts Centre Cafe"which is the subject for the City of Rockingham Short Fiction Awards 2017. Most of Selir's work is contemporary, and as well, hints of a style by the old French Impressionists, including Renoir and Claude Monet. The Impressionist movement was characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.


Please Note: This Prose class on Friday 21st April will be held in the FAC's small cafe room of Canvas Cafe from 10.00am til 12.00 midday. This is because it is school holidays and the Arts Centre does not have a room for us. As well, some writing exercises will revolve around the "Arts Centre Cafe" which is the subject for the City of Rockingham Short Fiction Awards 2017. A great opportunity to hone your skills looking at the ambience, structure and the sensuous aesthetics of the cafe, while perhaps having a coffee!  Critiquing group will meet after lunch.





CONTEMPORARY IMPRESSIONIST
A term used to describe works created by contemporary artists that share similar aesthetic qualities with those by the French Impressionists. Whether depicting urban environments or the natural world, all of the images that can be considered Contemporary Impressionist are rendered with loose, expressive brushwork and focus on the effects of light. Like many of the Impressionists, Daniela Selir finds peace and serenity in real places in the natural world. She has painted many scenes of a Billabong - one of her favourite spots.

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Ekphrasis: Writing About Art workshop with Helen Hagemann

Ekphrasis: "Writing About Art" will focus on a painting by Daniela Selir (1994) titled "Arts Centre Cafe" with the option of entering the City of Rockingham Short Fiction Awards. Friday, 7th April, 1pm-3pm. We will read short extracts of ekphrastic prose by John Ruskin, William Thackeray, Robert Rosenblum and in particular Homer's Bk 18 of the Illiad. Writing exercises will consider how to incorporate the "7" formal elements of art design in a short story.

Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Drawing Studio.
Time: 1-3pm. What to bring: Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad Cost: OOTA $20 - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save). Please note: No credit card facility and new attendees who arrive without the class fee will be asked to pay on the day via direct debit transfer.
For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com

City of Rockingham Short Fiction Awards - Now Open

Entries close: 14 July 2017

Entries are now open for the 2017 City of Rockingham Short Fiction Awards, with more than $5000 in prizes on offer.
Authors can submit up to three stories. Entered stories must be inspired by, drawn upon, or use the theme of the artwork "Arts Centre Cafe" by Daniela Selir (1994), which can be found on the entry form.
Individual stories cannot be entered in more than one category, and must be original, unpublished, not have received an award in another competition, and not be under consideration elsewhere from the time of entry in the awards until the official announcement of winners.
To ensure anonymity, please do not put names or contact details on the manuscript. Entries are read ‘blind’ by the judge, and all entries must be accompanied by a completed and signed entry form. Entries must be type-written, double-spaced on one side only of A4-sized white paper, with pages numbered, and the story title on each page.
Email entries as an attached .rtf of word document to customer@rockingham.wa.gov.au with "2017 Short Fiction Awards: [STORY TITLE] by [YOUR NAME]" as the subject line OR post it in an A4 envelope to:
City of Rockingham Short Fiction Awards
Community Development Officer, Arts and Culture
City of Rockingham
PO Box 2142
Rockingham DC WA 6967
Entry is free, and winners will be notified by phone or mail prior to the official announcement. The judge’s decisions is final, and no correspondence will be entered into. Any attempt to lobby judges or City of Rockingham employees, or influence decisions, may result in disqualification.

For further queries, please contact the Community Development Officer (Arts & Culture) on 9528 0333 or customer@rockingham.wa.gov.au.

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Gothic: The Darker Elements - a workshop with Helen Hagemann

This workshop will look briefly at the Gothic and especially how to create those darker effects in your writing. Friday, 24th March, 1pm-3pm. We will read an extract from Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Fall of the House of Usher. Writing exercises will look at the elements of the Gothic and its effect, particularly the effects Poe chiefly sought - terror, passion and horror. 
Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room 2.
Time: 1-3pm. What to bring: Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad Cost: OOTA $20 - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save). Please note: No credit card facility and new attendees who arrive without the class fee will be asked to pay on the day via direct debit transfer.
For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com

"The Fall of the House of Usher" is considered the best example of Poe's "totality", where every element and detail is related and relevant.
The theme of the crumbling, haunted castle is a key feature of Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto (1764), which largely contributed in defining the Gothic genre. The presence of a capacious, disintegrating house symbolizing the destruction of the human body is a characteristic element in Poe's later work.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" shows Poe's ability to create an emotional tone in his work, specifically feelings of fear, doom, and guilt. These emotions center on Roderick Usher, who, like many Poe characters, suffers from an unnamed disease. Like the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart", his disease inflames his hyperactive senses. The illness manifests physically but is based in Roderick's mental or even moral state. He is sick, it is suggested, because he expects to be sick based on his family's history of illness and is, therefore, essentially a hypochondriac. Similarly, he buries his sister alive because he expects to bury her alive, creating his own self-fulfilling prophecy.
The House of Usher, itself doubly referring both to the actual structure and the family, plays a significant role in the story. It is the first "character" that the narrator introduces to the reader, presented with a humanized description: its windows are described as "eye-like" twice in the first paragraph. The fissure that develops in its side is symbolic of the decay of the Usher family and the house "dies" along with the two Usher siblings. This connection was emphasized in Roderick's poem "The Haunted Palace" which seems to be a direct reference to the house that foreshadows doom.
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_the_House_of_Usher

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Irish Folklore: A workshop with Helen Hagemann, Friday 10th March

This workshop "Irish Folklore" is a brief study of Irish folklore and also a glimpse at an Irish writer, Peader O’Guilin, who recently attended the 2017 Perth Writers Festival. Friday, 10th March, 1pm-3pm. We will read a short story by Paeder O'Guilin called The Drowner. Writing exercises will look at the elements of folklore and how we gain inspiration for our characters and setting. For some writers folklore may be a stepping stone to fantasy or YA fiction.
Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room 2.
Time: 1-3pm. What to bring: Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad Cost: OOTA $20 - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save). Please note: No credit card facility and new attendees who arrive without the class fee will be asked to pay on the day via direct debit transfer.
For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com

Folklore includes all the human knowledge, customs, and beliefs that have been passed down through the oral tradition.' Obviously, the definition for folklore is a wider net than myth or legend. In the nineteenth century, W. J. Thomas coined the term 'folklore' for the term 'popular antiquities,' usually used to refer to the unrecorded traditions of a given group. By this understanding, folklore also encapsulates superstitions, customs, proverbs, riddles, and pseudoscientific lore. However, a more commonplace understanding of the term is that folklore is 'stories told by folks,' which generally indicates a level of popularity and informality, even entertainment.

Peader Ó Guilín is an Irish novelist. He grew up in Donegal though he went to school in Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare. He is now based in Dublin where he works for a computer company. Raised speaking Irish and English, Ó Guilín is also fluent in French, and Italian. He has written a number of stories and novels. His first novel, The Call, was published to critical acclaim in 2007 and translations into nine languages including Japanese and Korean. Before writing novels, Ó Guilín wrote a number of plays and worked on a weekly print comic with the artist Laura Howell, Sneaky, the Cleverest Elephant in the World, aimed at kids. The Times Educational Supplement called his first novel "a stark, dark tale, written with great energy and confidence and some arresting reflections on human nature." Paeder O'Guilin also writes Short Stories. He has been writing short stories all his life and has published them in all kinds of venues. If you have a kindle reader, you can find his collection, Forever in the Memory of God and Other Stories. Some of his stories have been turned into free podcasts. Heartless, The Sunshine Baron, The Drowner, and The Evil-Eater.

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Wormholes in the Cupboard: A Workshop with Helen Hagemann

Wormholes in the Cupboard: Discovering a different past. 

Have you ever wanted a different past? One that is more exciting that your own. This workshop on Friday, 24th February 1-3pm is about finding that wormhole in the cupboard, entering into that time warp and discovering that you have a completely different past to the one you know. Writers will read an excerpt from Every Anxious Wave by Mo Daviau (a debut novel). Writing exercises will help you look back in time when perhaps your father was a rock star, your mother was a Queen, or your uncle was a TV star? 

Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room 2 or possibly the Print Room (enquire at the desk).

Time: 1-3pm. What to bring:  Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad

Cost:  OOTA $20  - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save).  
Please note: No credit card facility and new attendees who arrive without the class fee will be asked to pay on the day via direct debit transfer. For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com

Every Anxious Wave
by Monique Daviau
A high-spirited and engaging novel, Monique Daviau's EVERY ANXIOUS WAVE plays ball with the big questions of where we would go and who we would become if we could rewrite our pasts, as well as how to hold on to love across time.

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Writing about Food, using the Five Senses with Helen Hagemann

Writing about Food, using the Five Senses with Helen Hagemann @ the Fremantle Arts Centre, Friday, 10th February, 1pm-3pm.  This workshop is designed to help writers understand the importance of a three dimensional world in their writing. In particular, ways in which writing about the sensory world of food can highlight their fiction. We will read an extract from The Historian's Daughter by Rashida Murphy to discover how the author presents Indian food in the novel. Writing exercises will involve descriptive writing, character and setting all revolving around food.

Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room 2.
Time: 1-3pm. What to bring:  Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad
Cost:  OOTA $20  - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save).  
Please note: No credit card facility and new attendees who arrive without the class fee will be asked to pay on the day via direct debit transfer. For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com 
The Historian's Daughter
In an old house with ‘too many windows and women’, high in the Indian hills, young Hannah lives with her older sister Gloria; her two older brothers; her mother – the Magician; a colourful assortment of aunts, blow-ins and misfits; and her father – the Historian. It is a world of secrets, jealousies and lies, ruled by the Historian but smoothed over by the Magician, whose kindnesses and wisdom bring homely comfort and all-enveloping love to a ramshackle building that seems destined for chaos.
And then one day the Magician is gone, Gloria is gone, and the Historian has spirited Hannah and her brothers away to a new and at first bewildering life in Perth. As Hannah grows and makes her own way through Australian life, an education and friendships, she begins to penetrate to the heart of one of the old house’s greatest secrets – and to the meaning of her own existence.

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Spec Fic: Writing the Future with Helen Hagemann

Spec Fic: Writing the Future with Helen Hagemann @ the Fremantle Arts Centre, Friday, 25th November, 1pm-3pm.  This workshop is designed to help writers think about ways in which we might look further ahead into the future and be slightly prophetic in our speculative fiction / sci-fi. We will read an extract from The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver set in the years 2029- 2047. Writing exercises will involve looking at some of the individual posibiblities that Shriver raises in her work. And being our last class of the year we may even discuss 2017 before it arrives!

Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room 3.

Time: 1-3pm. What to bring:  Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad

Cost:  OOTA $20  - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save).  
Please note: No credit card facility and new attendees who arrive without the class fee will be asked to pay on the day via direct debit transfer. For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com  

The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver
The year is 2029, and nothing is as it should be. The very essence of American life, the dollar, is under attack. In a coordinated move by the rest of the world’s governments, the dollar loses all its value. The American President declares that the States will default on all its loans–prices skyrocket, currency becomes essentially worthless, and we watch one family struggle to survive through it all.

The Mandibles can count on their inheritance no longer, and each member must come to terms with this in their own way–from the elegant expat author Nollie, in her middle age, returning to the U.S. from Paris after many years abroad, to her precocious teenage nephew Willing, who is the only one to actually understand the crisis, to the brilliant Georgetown economics professor Lowell, who watches his whole vision of the world disintegrate before his eyes.

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Split Narratives: Dividing the Narration of a Story with Helen Hagemann

Divided narrative in Gone Girl

Workshop: Split Narratives in Fiction with Helen Hagemann @ the Fremantle Arts Centre, Friday, 11th November, 1pm-3pm.  This workshop will look at the choice writers can make by dividing their stories between two (or more) characters. The class is suitable for the novelist and also the short story writer. Writing exercises will revolve around telling one story, but from the different perspectives of two characters.

Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room 3.

Time: 1-3pm. What to bring:  Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad

Cost:  OOTA $20  - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save).  
Please note: No credit card facility and new attendees who arrive without the class fee will be asked to pay on the day via direct debit transfer. For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com 

A split narrative allows both sides of a story to be told: particularly handy if the author is seeking to explore issues like the lies we tell ourselves (and others), or the ways in which events are inevitably filtered through our experiences, our pasts, our moods. Gone Girl does this by splitting the narrative between Nick and Amy, two partners in a strained marriage.
Reference: http://www.aliventures.com/split-narratives/

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Workshop: Writing Narrative Puzzles with Helen Hagemann

Workshop: Writing Narrative Puzzles with Helen Hagemann @ the Fremantle Arts Centre, Friday, 28th October, 1pm-3pm.  This workshop will look at the process of writing narrative puzzles that are used mainly in games, however from the writer's point of view the practice is essentially the same as plotting your fiction. Writing exercises will prompt writers to solve the various puzzles in their writing.

Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room 3.

Time: 1-3pm. What to bring:  Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad

Cost:  OOTA $20  - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save). Please note: No credit card facility and new attendees who arrive without the class fee will be asked to pay on the day via direct debit transfer. For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com 

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