Cinnamon Press Mavenclasses
Maven?
In 2021 our courses moved online and each is for 5 intensive and enriching days. Our first course last year was, by sheer con-incidence all men, and the second, again a fluke, all women, which made us wonder about the title ‘master’ class. Surely there must be a less gendered word? A maven is someone with knowledge, expertise and some dazzling skills. It has a Yiddish root ‘one who understands’ becoming a maven is a long process, always learning. So Mavenclasses they have become.
The March and September courses last year were both fully booked and superb events. Like everyone, there’s lots we have missed about living in close quarters for a week with other writers, but our experience of running online courses and workshops has been extremely positive with a great sense of community and engagement during the sessions and we hope to bring the inspiring environment of the Brittany forest into the sessions as much as possible.
Each day has 2 main workshops, opportunities to share work from the week and from any work in progress and a one-to-one feedback session for each participant. We walso have evening sessions to share work and for readings, including a guest reader or two. In addition there are optional elements including addiitional downloadable prompts, guided meditations and working with sensory elements to enrich our writing.
Our next course date will be:
September 12 – 16
And we are open for bookings.
We look forward to working with you!
The group will be working at a good level and is suitable for those with some writing experience who are serious about their work. If you’ve worked with us on a course before simply sign up. If your work is new to us, please send a small sample (2 or 3 poems, a novel opening or short story…) and a little bit about how you see your writing — we’re not making judgements on the work but we do want to make sure that the course is a good fit for your investment.
We will have a maximum group size of 8 participants to ensure everyone is able to contribute and be heard.
We generally have a theme to help the workshops cohere but find that people can work on very disaparate pieces of writing within this. This year's theme is 'Writing our Alchemy'. We will focus on how we can ground our work, embodying our writing to make it connected and vital, and how we allow our writing to take leaps, soar and move us in new directions. We generally send you a morning meditation that ends in journalling prompts to use if you would like to. There are 2 Zoom workshops (usually in the morning but sometimes afternnoons if we have writers from different time zones) with a break between the two, plus a portion of the day for you to write. We have extra prompts and exercises for those who would like them. These might include soundscapes and writing trails from Brittany for those who would like them. We meet again on Zoom each evening to share daily feedback, work in progress, to hear a guest reader and celebrate the week’s writing.
The where is easy -- for the time being we're staying with Zoom. Travel between the UK and France is still complicated by COVID but we hope in the future to be able to welcome people to Brittany.
The next 2022 date is September 12 - 16.
The cost for the week is £295.
There is a non-refundable deposit of £100 on booking (of course it will be refunded if we have to cancel for any reason & we’ll send bank details. Please note we can’t accept cheques).
And the balance of £195 is due 4 weeks before the start of each course.
(If you would prefer to pay in Euro or US $, let us know.)
If you have an account on the website you can use this whizzy form to book your place.
Or simply email Jan and she'll send you a form.
If you haven’t been on one of our previous courses the form will have a space for you to send some sample work and a bit about your writing practice and aims along with your form.
Jan will get back to you to confirm places and send you an invoice for the deposit and final payment.
If you would like to know more you can drop jan an email on the site and we'll get back to you.