Summer school by Andrew Shephard

My granddaughter proudly told me that she has already gone up into Year Two, even though it is the summer holidays. They manage transitions very well at her school, preparing the youngsters for the next stage in their learning. She was surprised when I told her that I wouldn't see her the next week because I was going to a writers' summer school, but quickly accepted that even granddads still have a need for schooling. Often I play stupid so that she can tell me things, but probably she thinks I am stupid. I certainly do have a lot to learn.

The Swanwick Writers' Summer School has now completed its sixty-eighth year, a week of workshops, courses, speakers, and social events and I am back home catching up on sleep and Olympics. There is no better way of adding to whatever writing skills you may already have. It is by turns entertaining, exhausting, enlivening. This year I focused on poetry workshops, but there are always a variety of courses in writing novels, non-fiction, and short stories as well. Whichever courses they choose, people come away armed with enough ideas and inspiration to last a year.

The staging of the school is an entirely voluntary effort. As one of the helpers, I attended the welcome for nearly seventy people who were at Swanwick for the first time, and the follow-up later in the week to check that they had been made to feel welcome. What a privilege it was to listen to the enthusiasm expressed by first timers from eighteen to eighty, from novice to professional.

Tea break on the lawn at Swanwick

The courses themselves are only part of the Swanwick effect. Writing is a solitary activity, so it is an invaluable experience to be surrounded by other writers morning, noon and night - people who understand through first-hand experience the need to create something as perfect as possible with words. The learning is as likely to happen over lunch as in a workshop. Contacts are made which can lead to future projects. In the end, it's all about communication, a means to go beyond the self and reach out to the other, which can be a struggle at times.

Password to you

Our connection is unstable

I can’t hook up with you.

The template’s been disabled

because you’re using version two.

We exchanged our metadata

when signals were so strong,

but now, just one week later

you won’t let me log on.

To me you are an icon

With pixels sharp and bright.

Why can’t we test our functions

or share a megabyte?

I’ve searched your patch for malware

and clicked the mouse all day,

peripherals are all hooked up

but still you say no way.

I’ve ticked terms and conditions,

my interface is strong.

Please save me from perdition,

don’t make me wait too long.

For more information, click on this link. I hope to see you there next year.

http://www.swanwickwritersschool.org.uk/