teaching roundup

ASFFWA has begun an online progam. The first bits of it are by myself (an online Tuesday-night writing workshop) and by Jennifer Fallon (a live chat). My workshop starts in nine days and was only advertised (to members) just over a day ago and it's nearly full. This is good! What's even better is that the ASFFWA people are willing to take names for people interested in repeats of this course or for other courses. There's outstanding training for writers in some major Australian centres, but it's hard for lots of people, and they're interested in making a difference.

The particular workshop that they've chosen to to test the waters is one I've taught several times online, once to editors. It was analysed very thoroughly by the editor group and they liked my approach and technique. Technically, it's about writing using the five senses, but the focus is very closely on students' writing styles. No neat formulae of "No adjectives" or "Writing descriptions should be couched in this way."

What else am I teaching this semester? I'm so glad you asked! For a start, everything else is in Canberra. The ACT Writers' Centre courses don't have dates on them yet, but there are some and one of them will probably concern grammar for writers. Everything else is ANU.

The ANU classes are Latin for beginners (which is probably a one-off), writing novels, and, of course building your own Medieval society (for writing and playing).

And that's it for now!

(no subject)

The body language of Lost in Space annoyed me (little girls have slightly bowed heads and big pleading eyes and little boys have intrusive cheeky 'own the world' attitudes), so I'm giving it a miss and watching bits of the Richard Greene Robin Hood, instead. This means I'm back to the Middle Ages. I'm also nearly finished the editing I was supposed to be finished before things went pearshaped. I should be up to entering it on the computer tonight. (things are still pearshaped - but slowly improving.)

Robin Hood was a pleasant surprise. I watched it avidly when I was extraordinarily young. Now that I'm considerably old, my view has changed. I started comparing the fifties Robin to the twenty-first century Robin and the fifties was a lot more interesting. It's not just that there are guest parts from all sorts of actors who became part of my childhood (Patrick Troughton, for instance, and Paul Eddington as part of the band of merry men), it's more that the makers of it actually checked up the Middle Ages a bit. It's still bad history, but it's seldom zombie ancestry history. Terms like heriot are misused, but they *are* used.

The big thing I love about the series is the writers (although Richard Greene is just as much fun as when I was six - he's taller and younger, though - I have no idea why my child-memory says that he was short and middle-aged): I just found out that the writers were blacklisted in the US. The wonders of the internet! Hannah Weinstein is someone I need to find more about. She took the production of Robin Hood to the UK, but employed US writers. They used false names or no names in the attributed work and so they had employment despite the blacklisting and their work reached the US despite McCarthy. What's even cooler is that this Robin was properly political - these writers knew about repression and they were wildly left-wing and it all appears in the script.

This is common knowledge. It's even in Wikipedia. It's new to me, though. I was enwrapped in the heroism of my childhood memory and had never thought about its contexts.

One day I'll find the academic writings on this. I would love to read a detailed comparison of the politics of the different Robin manifestations. In the meantime, I shall just enjoy knowing that the popular TV series of the fifties and of sixties Australia, was probably more subversive than Men in Tights.

(no subject)

All I can say about this is that desperance is a bad, bad influence...

In 2012, gillpolack resolves to...

Put fifty interstitial arts a month into my savings account.
Tell my family about fantasy books.
Give some computers to charity.
Take evening classes in religion.
Ask my boss for a feminism.
Lose ten middle ages by March.

Get your own New Year's Resolutions: