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Writing Course: Against Originality

Following the successful run of my Irish Writers Centre course 'Something Borrowed Something New' in Spring 2020 - which began in-person at the centre before shifting almost seamlessly to Zoom for obvious reasons - and which I'm delighted to report has led to a participant's work recently being picked up for publication by a Chicago press - I'm pleased to be leading a new course with title 'Against Originality' for the Irish Writers Centre's Autumn 2022 Programme.

You can book a place on 'Against Originality' through the centre. This is an online course so participants can book and join from anywhere, and it is suitable for all levels of experience. Start date is Thursday 13 October 2022, and duration is 8 weeks, in 2-hour weekly sessions (6.30 - 8.30pm Dublin time).

See below, or the Irish Writers Centre's course page, for course details and endorsements.




Against Originality with Christodoulos Makris:

This course facilitates the creation of new work through perceptive, innovative and critically acute engagement with already existing material.

The contemporary writer is operating in an environment offering a superabundance of readily accessible sources and ever-increasing shareable text and audiovisual content. As a result, the nature of literary composition is increasingly relying on understanding the implications of this ‘crisis’ of authorship, and ever more explicitly on our reading, selection, and manipulation skills.

This is a practical course incorporating regular writing tasks underpinned by carefully selected and targeted supporting material, as well as group discussion and exchange. Development of work-in-progress will be facilitated. Sections include: writing with ephemeral texts, appropriative interventions (eg sampling, cutups, erasure, reframing), documentary techniques, translation within and across languages or media, non-textual content, automatic transcription and algorithmic text generation, writing with constraints, collaboration, aspects of presentation and publishing.

The course is designed to deepen participants’ understanding of approaches and techniques towards repurposing pre-existing material, to provoke experimentation and innovation, and to grant permissions through example and dialogue, thus aiding the development of a truly contemporary writing practice. Ideas and concepts explored have an application in all genres, and they reflect the basics of literary composition which relies on connecting linguistic elements ("all writing is in fact cutups" – William Burroughs). A broader engagement with the politics and poetics of language use and communication is embedded in the course. Editorial and publishing feedback will be provided on request.

Course Review (Irish Writers Centre, March - May 2020):
"Course content was rich and stimulating; writing tasks were very well set up; the group had fun while working on multi-disciplinary creative tasks. Brilliant sessions; generous, thoughtful facilitator; great ideas to reflect on new ways of writing, originality and what is art."

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