Our residential courses and workshops in literature and creative writing of all kinds are led by such internationally respected mentors as Mimi Khalvati, Matthew Sweeney, Mark Doty and Judith Barrington. We also offer facilities for your own courses and workshops.

1st-8th September

A Week of Poetry with Mimi Khalvati

Mentor: Mimi Khalvati

Mimi Khalvati returns to the Almassera for a further inspiring week of poetry workshop, discussion, close reading and creative work - full details to follow MIMI KHALVATI's acclaimed poetry in such collections as ‘White Ink’, ‘Mirror-work’, Entries on Light’, ‘Chine’ and ‘The Meanest Flower’ (Shortlisted for the TS Eliot prize) is always superbly crafted, with painterly touches and masterly control. A keystone in ‘The Poetry School’ Her latest publication is 'Child' New and Selected Poems 1991- 2011 a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. (Carcanet ISBN 978 1 84777 094 3)It contains two long poems describing the landscape of Relleu (see 'original work' www.mimikhalvati.co.uk/

Price: £695

17th March - 24th March

Beginning to Write

Mentor: Christopher North

CREATIVE WRITING is the most freely available and accessible way of developing and expanding creative and spiritual drives. It needs no more than a pen and paper – and the time to use them. With these simple tools you can explore the world afresh – find ways of seeing things more deeply and in ways that are more fulfilling and rich. No matter what writing discipline you favour, be it keeping a journal, maintaining a correspondence, script writing, writing for children, fiction, memoir, poetry, family history, travelogue, blog or monograph, there are common craft skills that can greatly extend your range of expression. This week we will explore ways to make creative writing a central enriching part of your life. Expect exercises, explorations, fun and, most important, the opening of doors and windows into fresh worlds of creativity… CHRISTOPHER NORTH’s poetry collection ‘A Mesh of Wires’ was shortlisted for the Forward prize in 2000 and he has published and won many prizes for his poetry both before and after. Chief facilitator at the Almàssera, he has been involved with the world of writing workshops for the last fifteen years. His latest collections ‘Explaining the Circumstances’ and the bilingual ‘Al Otro Lado del Aguilar’ (with Terru Gifford) are available from Oversteps Books.

Price: £695

31st March - April 6th 2012

The Art of Surprise

Mentor: Mario Petrucci

“No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” Robert Frost OUR NOTION of 'surprise' as the sudden and unexpected, that event outside our control, isn’t entirely accurate. Writers can practise techniques to conduct the lightning flashes as much as kite-flyers in the storm – but survive to tell the tale. Indeed, we writers often yearn for our creations to leap beyond our diligently constructed fences and bound off into terrain we could never imagine ours. The elements are central to creativity: writing can ground us, heat us intensely, quench our demons, or oxygenate thought and feeling; but without that fifth element – surprise – these impacts remain entirely knowable and temporal. Often, it is language itself that yields unexpected fruit, a power that can be evoked and unlocked. An award-winning poet and experienced writing tutor, Mario Petrucci will be unlocking and evoking new work through a variety of techniques that access the deeper strata of writing process, always seeking to jump our habitual grooves. There will be ample time for group discussion, the sharing of work, and individual feedback – but the emphasis is the generation and development of new work in styles and contexts writers might be experiencing for the very first time. www.mariopetrucci.com Mario is "As close as we have to a 21st Century renaissance man.... one of the most interesting and best ...' This will be an exciting course - ending with Easter in a Spanish mountain village (options to extend) www.mariopetrucci.com/ -

Price: £695

14th -21st April

Imagined, Recalled

Mentor: Jane Draycott

A WEEK OF WORKSHOPS and feedback sessions looking at the relation between our everyday and imaginative lives, at the two-way charge between what we consciously recall and the imaginative exploration that fires around it. Guided exercises looking at ways to push open doors on to the kind of poem, in Robert Lowell's words, not 'paralyzed by fact', will be supported by constructive feedback on drafts in progress. JANE DRAYCOTT’S latest collection Over (Carcanet/Oxford Poets) was short-listed for the 2009 T S Eliot Prize. Nominated as a Next Generation Poet in 2004, her recent translation of the medieval dream-elegy Pearl is a PBS Recommended Translation. She teaches on postgraduate writing programmes at the University of Oxford and Lancaster University, as well as for the Arvon Foundation and The Poetry School, where her Saturday Workshops regularly sell out. www.janedraycott.org.uk

Price: ₤695

28th April - 5th May 2012

Time Traveling: Writing Memoir:

Mentor: Judith Barrington

Time Traveling: Stories from Back When… This course will focus on creative nonfiction prose writing—whether we call it literary memoir, personal essay, or “life writing.” We’ll pay particular attention to what happens when we look back from the present time, not only to tell stories from our lives, but also to muse on them retrospectively and develop their underlying themes. As well as addressing the particular challenges of moving, on the page, through time periods, we’ll write, read the work of other writers, share some of our drafts, and discuss many aspects of the genre. Participants should read ahead of time both Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art by Judith Barrington and The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again by Sven Birkerts. JUDITH BARRINGTON is the author of Lifesaving: A Memoir, which won the 2001 Lambda Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir. She is also the author of Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art and three collections of poetry, most recently Horses and the Human Soul. Her Lost Lands, a poetry chapbook, recently won the Robin Becker Chapbook Award. She is a faculty member of the University of Alaska, Anchorage’s low-residency MFA Program and also teaches workshops in Britain and Spain. www.judithbarrington.com/ .

Price: £695