UWB Crest

Lifelong Learning at Bangor University

Another ‘sold out’ writing day at Lifelong Learning

Richard GwynAnother fully booked Writing Workshop took place at Lifelong Learning, Bangor University on Saturday 25th September. A day for writers, featuring guest reader Richard Gwyn and workshops with Fiona Owen and Zoë Skoulding, explored the vital roles of memory and imagination in transforming lived experience into fiction. It offered students the opportunity to write and discuss memoir, fiction and poetry with published authors.

Guest reader Richard Gwyn grew up in Breconshire. He studied anthropology at the London School of Economics for a while, and then spent many years in reckless travel. He returned to Wales in the 1990s to take a PhD in Linguistics at Cardiff University, where he currently directs the Creative Writing programme.

“Having spent the last couple of years finishing a memoir and a book of prose poems simultaneously - jumping from one book to the other, I realise now that they are profoundly interconnected: they both have the same root in lived experience, as do my novels. I am intrigued by the 'translation' of lived experience into 'fiction' and how we have to trust the imagination to lead us there.”

He is the author of five collections of poetry and two novels, The Colour of a Dog Running Away and Deep Hanging Out. In addition he has written many articles and essays and he reviews new fiction for The Independent. He has translated poetry from Spanish and Catalan, and his own poetry and fiction have appeared in several languages.

The next writing day will be held in January 2011. Contact Lifelong Learning on 01248 382475 to place your name on the mailing list so that you may be informed about such events.