LEARNING:Four young women writers have started an innovative creative-writing school for aspiring novelists, poets and storytellers. GRACE GARVEYsigns up
SHARING A POT of tea with all four women behind the Big Smoke Writing Factory could be a daunting prospect if they weren’t so, well, big – in the magnanimous sense. Big ideas come tumbling out; big hopes are laid bare; big plans for their new writing centre take shape, and all in an atmosphere of Willy Wonka-style industry.
Claire Hennessy, the youngest of the group at just 23 – and with an impressive nine novels under her belt – sums up their collective approach as “get on with it”.
“There’s no point sitting around waiting for the muse, just start writing,” says Hennessy, who also found time to read history and English at Trinity College, while teaching on the side. Writing mainly for young adults, she comes across as Hermione Granger with a playful streak.
Many aspiring writers join writers’ groups because they just don’t know where to begin, which is where founder number two comes in. Nicole Rourke has developed a programme designed to unleash creativity, which the others say is “better than Julia Cameron”, referring to the well-known author of The Artist’s Way. Rourke says she is uncomfortable with “hippy language”, and tries to keep her classes as down-to-Earth as possible. Drawing on her background in theatre, she uses play as a means of kick-starting the creative process.
Yvonne Cullen is perhaps the best-known member of the quartet – on the workshop circuit at least – having been voted “Best Creative Writing Teacher in Dublin” by the Dubliner magazine. A barrister turned writer, Cullen is an engaging mix of scatty and sharp. Her students regularly win prizes and places on MA programmes, and attest to her talent as a facilitator and writer. “She’s one of those rare people who can write beautifully, and share the skill with others,” says a former student.
This delicate juggling act is touched upon by Maggie Smith Hurt, the fourth smokin’ factory girl. “Not every writer can teach. Sylvia Plath couldn’t get her students’ writing out of her head,” says Smith Hurt, an American poet who has no such problem. Born in Iowa but living in Dublin with her Irish husband for the past six years, she taught creative writing at Hunter College, New York, and latterly at the Irish Writers’ Centre and UCD.
Smith Hurt believes the best way for a writer to cultivate their craft is to read and discuss other writers’ work, and her teaching method is influenced by the workshops she was a part of in New York.
In a sea of writing centres, what sets the Big Smoke Writing Factory apart? It is, say the founders, a collective endeavour to offer the best possible classes to those who sign up. “We really care that each student ends up in the right class. That’s more important than having a set number of people in any single class,” says one. “We will be sharing materials, and learning from each other’s strengths,” says another.
“We are teachers, who are also running the place. That generates a level of personal responsibility and accountability not readily found,” says a third. Mindful of the less-than-poetic recession, classes are affordable and competitively priced.
The team combine their expertise to offer core courses all year round, such as “Beginning to Write” and “The Developing Writer”. They also contribute specific strengths to unique courses such as Cullen’s in-demand “Writing Train Advanced Writing Workshops”, Rourke’s innovative “Kick-start Creativity”, Hennessy’s “Novel In Progress” and Smith Hurt’s “Demystifying Poetry”. Guest genre writers are also lined up, kicking off with classes in stand-up comedy.
Apart from creating a vibrant learning community for students, the four are keen to build an entity that supports writers who teach. They want to establish a standard as to how a writer who teaches should be treated – and to implement a business model that allows them to make a decent living while they write.
“It’s a way of helping writers to sustain themselves. You might not make a lot of money, but if you can make a living without having to do something totally different that doesn’t suit, that’s a success,” says Cullen. This apparently hasn’t been done before, which makes them pioneers of a kind. Smith Hurt describes writing as a vocation.
“We are vocational artists with a secondary vocation as teachers,” says the mother-of-one who recently quit a job in the corporate sector to answer the call. All four agree it is crucial in order to stay vital as artists and continue with their own work.
Decision making comes easily to the group, who enjoy batting thoughts back and forth.
“One of us floats an idea and the others don’t so much knock it as harpoon it down,” laughs Cullen, offering a glimpse of robust democracy at work on the factory floor. The four are visibly delighted to have each other as colleagues in an arena where there is normally no one to ask “Did that go well?”
As they prepare to fire up the furnaces, their confidence in the venture is infectious. Arts funding may be thin on the ground, but somehow that doesn’t seem as important as boundless passion – and pots of tea.
Open registration today from 2pm-6pm at the Big Smoke Writing Factory, 7 Lower Hatch Street, Dublin 2. Info and gift vouchers from www.bigsmokewritingfactory.com