Last weekend I took part in a course at Ty Newydd. It’s the National Writing Centre of Wales, and it was the first time I’ve been there. It’s an amazing place, you can just feel the literary energy running through it.
I love Wales, especially the Snowdonia area, and it made my
day when I saw that I could combine going there with doing a really great
looking course. So we spent eight hours travelling, eight hours of traffic,
motorways, accidents and encouraging my dogs to pee at service stations, then
finally arriving. And then at the end of the course, the same in reverse to get home.
But it was worth it. The course was Poetry and Dementia, led
by John Killick and Karen Hayes who are both inspirational and full of
knowledge. They shared their expertise around working creatively with people
living with dementia, and gave me loads of wonderful ideas and insights to use in
my own work.
The other people on the course were all so lovely, and I just have
to use the word inspirational again, everyone was so passionate about what they
do. And it was just such a treat to have the opportunity to talk so much about poetry,
it so rarely happens in everyday life. I came away with new friends and a list
of writers to explore more.
It’s reminded me how important these kinds of courses are, and
how important it is to connect to other writers. I’m now trying to work out
what I can do next.
