Two participants from our recent conference at Hever Castle, have submitted their work for publication to Alex Shoumatoff’s site, DispatchesFromTheVanishingWorl
Alex says, “I think you’re doing something really great, when you think of all the different sensibilities, some sophisticated, some not, that you brought together and how we all bonded with our common love of the written word.”
A while ago, we wrote our Hever Castle writing conference would be a first for us on many levels – our first conference in a castle, our first conference in autumn, and the first time we have combined history with literature.
But there’s another first for us. We are opening our doors to the public.
In the past, we met dozens of fellow writing types at our workshop events. But this time we hope to meet hundreds, because we are also staging a series of lectures.
Dress up, come and have dinner with us and a glass of wine, hear our speakers, get your book signed, meet like-minded writers and have a chat with our experts.
They will be talking about the Tudors – particularly Anne Boleyn who lived at Hever Castle – the state of publishing today, literature and journalism for our time, along with the art of simply putting words together and crafting your stories. If you’ve been following our blog, you’ll already know some of our speakers.
Here are the details of our lecture evenings. Each dinner will raise money for a locally-based charity. Those organisations will receive 20% of our profits.
21 November – Historian Alison Weir, in support of Hospice in the Weald
22 November – Historians Alison Weir & Sarah Gristwood, in aid of Kent Air Ambulance (This lecture is followed by a special Thanksgiving dinner)
23 November – Pulitzer prize winning author Paul Harding, in aid of Action for Children
24 November – Pulitzer winning author Robert Olen Butler in support of the Dogs Trust
25 November – Vanity Fair contributing editor Alex Shoumatoff, in aid of WWF
26 November – Historian Eric Ives in aid of the YMCA
27 November – Pulitzer prize winner Edward Humes in support of the Wildwood Trust
Tickets are £115 or $184.00 for one lecture and dinner with wine.
Contact: abroadwriters@yahoo.com
The experience of having your novel rejected repeatedly can be liberating, says Paul Harding, because it leaves you free to write whatever you want.
And Paul has proved that writing for writing’s sake pays off, because his journey from rejection slips to Pulitzer recognition is now known throughout the publishing and literary world.
He wrote Tinkers, a novel about a dying clock repairer who is released from the constraints of time and memory to return to the life he had with his father, but the manuscript remained unpublished for years and was repeatedly rejected.
Eventually, Tinkers found its way into print through a small publisher. It has since won the Pulitzer Prize.
The important thing to remember is not to confuse publishing with writing, Paul says.
“I felt that I was having my fair share of rejection, along with everyone else. But in the meantime it helped to think ‘hey, if I don’t get published, at least that means I can write whatever I want’. Art for art’s sake.”
‘It’s worth the trouble’
This is the advice Paul now offers to first-time novelists in the light of his experience.
“Be dogged. First, it can take a lot of time and effort for your manuscript to find the editor or agent who is going to love it and be its best advocate.
“Second, keep in mind that you’re working on something that might have profound meaning for other people someday – so it’s worth the trouble.”
And it’s that connection between the writing and reader that is key to producing exceptional writing, Paul says.
“I think that all good writing activates a sense of recognition in the reader.
“It’s the sense of ‘I’ve seen that before; I’ve felt that way before’.
“My favourite moments as a reader are when I realise that I’ve just read something that is true, and I’ve always known it to be true, and I’ve never seen anyone put it into words before.”
‘Read the best’
One of the most important jobs for a writer is to expose themselves to the best writing they can lay their hands on, Paul says.
“If you’re serious, you need to know what your art can do at its very best.
“You need to know the high-water marks of your chosen art, humbling as it is to compare your own stuff to it.”
The books that have inspired Paul are the classics. “I read and re-read older books – and tons of theology,” he says.
He freely admits to having barely made it past 1950 in terms of who he has and has not read. His favourites include Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, and The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.
Paul’s view is simple. “Time sorts art out, in some ways.”
Cultivating artistic vision
When he thinks back to his education in creative writing, he remembers his tutors showing him how they modelled the life of the mind that was necessary for making art.
He says: “I was privileged to watch people conducting their lives at the highest levels of intellectual and aesthetic sophistication.”
At Abroad‘s Hever Castle conference this November, he will be helping participants cultivate their own intellectual and aesthetic autonomy.
Paul explains: “I want to help them on their way to their own artistic visions, whatever they are, in whatever idiom.”
As for Paul’s own Cinderella story, he says he is now just “carrying all of the good fortune forward”.
Paul has already drafted his second novel, Enon, which is set in the same fictional world as Tinkers. He expects his next book to be out by summer next year.
In the years before life as a literary impresario, Nancy Gerbault travelled the world as a flight attendant, produced internationally-recognised work as a painter, and for a while pursued her passion for food – working as a restaurant chef in California.
Her love of art and letters and creativity may lead one to believe she is “arty”, but Nancy, owner and founder of Abroad Writers’ Conference, finds her inspiration in nature and science.
During her career, she has studied Art, History of Art and Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, she has exhibited her paintings in exhibitions around the world – with one project receiving recognition from the then Minister of Culture for France, Jack Lang and the archaeologist Richard Leakey – and she has studied prehistoric rock art, hunter-gatherer societies and Food History at California State University, Sacramento in where she received her MA in Anthropology/Archaeology.
Nancy’s love of Food, History and Literature was the foundation of what drove her to create Abroad Writers’ Conference. She loves to create modern day Salons in historic settings where guest enjoy the company of others who love Literature, History and wonderful food.
But how did a love of science lead her to set up Abroad Writers Conference, and more recently the Nancy Gerbault Literary Agency?
Nancy explains. “I have had to adapt in numerous situations, and after you do, several times, you realise that you just don’t have control in life.
“You have to roll, adapt or die. Just like in evolution. Anyone who stays rigid is not able to survive. Evolution teaches you that, and it applies to life.”
So this is how it all came about.
‘An idea in mind’
In 2003, Nancy wanted a new direction and she found a simple equation.
She had already worked in the travel industry as a Trans World Airlines (TWA) flight attendant and she had completed both her degrees. So she put travel and academia together and came up with Abroad Writers Conference where writers of any discipline get together.
She also took aspiring authors and put them together with international authors. Many of the participants, she noted, would never have had access to the tutors she worked with, were it not for the events that Abroad staged around the world. So she took talented new writers and helped to shape their careers.
Literature became the primary focus, although history and science had been the original driving force. Writers such as Dame Margaret Drabble, Alan Lightman, Michael Ondaatje, Andrew Motion, Robert Olen Butler and director Sally Potter took part in some of Abroad’s first events. Later events: Rae Armantrout, Sarah Gristwood, Paul Harding, Edward Humes, Michele Roberts, Jane Smiley, Rebecca Walker, Alison Weir.
This improvisational, evolutionary approach was deliberate. Painterly, even in how she looked at her conference events.
As Nancy puts it: “To me, it is like painting. I go to a canvas with an idea in mind, but the painting directs me. I know when it’s becoming alive. That’s when I no longer control it.”
And for anyone who remains unconvinced, this is how the Hever Castle conference or Lismore Castle came about, because it’s no secret that renting a castle steeped in history, and one that is in need of loving maintenance and conservation all year round, could be a pricey endeavour.
‘Life is uncertain’
“We went with our dreams,” says Nancy. “Hever or Lismore Castle was more expensive than anything else we were looking at. But we were drawn to it.
“If we had gone by the book we never would have selected it as our first choice. We just allowed ourselves to experiment and it allowed us to feel free.”
“Remember that humans only want to control all aspects of life because they hate uncertainty, but life is uncertain.
“Everything around us can change in a second. So, we cling to what we know, and we believe that it makes us feel more secure.”
Often, when we want to make something right – or correct – it becomes too heavy and it no longer breathes. It’s our problems we stack on top, layer by layer, until we kill the magic inside.”
“Certainty creates so many problems, because life just doesn’t go according to plan.”
So how best to proceed?
“One thing I’ve never understood is why anyone would want tomorrow to be the same as today,” says Nancy.
“Adapt. Be flexible. Evolve. Embrace change.”
Abroad Writers’ Conference 2012 fellowships: Competition details
What’s your process? Does a deadline stop you in your tracks or drive you forward? Does a word limit make your stomach lurch? Does your imagination disappear if there is a big prize to win? Or do you thrive when winnings beckon? If the publishing world raises the stakes for you, do you raise the stakes for your characters and go for it?
Perhaps you prefer to let our story grow organically, like a plant. Maybe you like to watch it reveal new shoots with the seasons. Like a gardener, maybe you tend your story and mull it over in your mind, rather like mulching it over with compost. You know what it’s like to stand in surprise and awe when your story suddenly decides to turn to or from the sunlight.
Whether it’s one or the other, or something else entirely, we think everybody’s writing process is personal and entirely up to them.
But if you want to write something new and amazing for our short story competition, you’ve got until 15 August. There is a word limit and you can submit online. Full details are on the Abroad website. And yes. You life-in-the-fast-lane people will still have to fuss about double-spacing your manuscript.
However, if you’d rather venture out into your writing garden and gently dig up something you’ve tended over the seasons – we like that idea too. Let’s admire the roses together and just mention quietly that there are some prizes. While you prune away that tangle of honeysuckle and clematis, let’s just add that the prizes include Hever conference fellowships, a critique opportunity, and publication on our website and blog. But for now, let’s just fork over the weeds and enjoy the sun.
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