"By Endurance We Conquer"
Creative Writing with Mary Russell

Programme - 3 days

DAY 1

10.00am – 10.30am:	Registration
10.30am – 11.30am:	What is travel for? To fulfill a dream, to get a rush of adrenaline, to stare at strange faces and places. What is travel writing for? Whose interest does it serve – the writer, the subject, the reader? Do travel writers have responsibilities?
11.30am – 12.00 noon:	Break
12.00 noon – 1.00pm:	What is ‘good’ travel writing? Discussion of examples offered by facilitator with participants offering their own favourite examples.
13.00pm – 14.00pm:	Lunch
14.00pm – 15.00pm:	Getting down to it: The nitty gritty of travel writing. Keeping a diary, note-taking, composition, research, accuracy
15.00pm – 16.00pm:	Discussion: “Those who rush across the seas change the skies, not their minds” Cultural baggage … what we take with us, what we bring back
16.00pm – 16.30pm:	Tea. Close of workshop.
DAY 2
10.30am – 11.30am:	Ways of seeing. Do men and women see things differently? Discussion on Ella Maillart and Peter Fleming’s books about the same journey, based on photocopied examples provided by the facilitator. Them and Us: Discussion on two views of Ireland from Eric Newby and Robert Robertson.
11.30am – 12.00 noon:	Break
12.00 noon – 13.00pm:	Participants offer their own work.
13.00pm – 14.00pm:	Lunch
14.00pm – 15.00pm:	Exploration and endurance. Three ways of toughing it: Dervla Murphy, Stanley Stewart, Christina Dodwell.
15.00pm – 16.00pm:	Going for it! Participants are invited to devise a home-based (i.e. local) journey of endurance and exploration, travelling either solo or in pairs. This can be a challenging hill walk, a night’s camping, a bike ride, a horse ride, a torchlight trek etc. A day without food! Preparing for this: research, map, safety, cost. The role of emotions. The value of fear. Does it matter if the objective is not achieved? To find out, read Eric Newby’s ‘A Short Walk in the Hindu Kish’
DAY 3
19.30 pm – 20.30pm:	Celebrating survival Participants read their accounts
20.30pm – 21.00:	Break
21.00pm – 22.00pm:	Discussion on the challenges, the problems encountered, the solutions found. Where do we go from here? Onwards to the great adventure
Work produced during the writer’s workshops will be presented in Athy Library on Thursday 24th October at 8pm as part of the programme for the Ernest Shackleton Autumn School.

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